Livestock rations are formulated to minimize feed cost subject to nutritional requirements for a target performance level, which ignores the potentially substantial cost of disposing of nutrients fed in excess of nutritional requirements. We incorporate nutrient disposal costs into a modified...

The current method to derive livestock diets is to optimize cost performance subject to animal performance and resulting nutritional requirements via a linear programming model. In contrast, we examine the livestock diet formulation problem as a multi-criteria decision model with the criteria...

Nutrient management and air emissions continue to be an area of increased management control on all livestock operations as environmental regulations become more stringent. Agricultural producers must consider uncertainty surrounding the timing of and potential increases of environmental policy...

Increasing volatility in milk and feed prices has led to higher levels of market and financial risk for dairy farmers. We examine dairy farmer use of forward pricing methods for milk sales and feed purchases. Operators with larger herds, higher levels of education, and those farm businesses that...

Forests support rural livelihoods and food security in many developing countries by providing critical sources of food, medicine, shelter, building materials, fuels, and cash income. The increasing demand for forest products has enhanced rural livelihoods and enabled the expansion of domestic...

The Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) is a voluntary environmental program (VEP) initiated in 1999 by a coalition of state government agencies and agricultural, environmental and conservation groups in Michigan. We survey Michigan livestock producers and conduct...

The impact of environmental disasters on consumers’ perceptions and preferences for specific food items has seldom been studied in the applied economics literature. Recent aquatic disasters, namely the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, have had profound...

The advancement of South America’s agro-pastoral frontier has been widely linked to losses in biodiversity and tropical forests, with particular impacts on the Brazilian cerrado, the Atlantic Forest, and the Amazon. Here I consider an important, yet largely overlooked, driver of South...

Previous studies have identified regulatory preemption and differentiation as two main motives for participation in voluntary environmental programs (VEPs). This research examines the motivations of livestock farmers to participate in the Michigan Agricultural Environmental Assurance Program...