Replaced with revised version of paper 05/26/11.

The Agricultural Risk Management Simulator (ARMS) is a microcomputer program designed to help users evaluate strategies for managing yield and price risk in crop farming operations. Risk management strategies are defined by choices regarding crop mix, the purchase of multiple peril crop...

The public demand for ecosystem services measured by willingness to pay (WTP) in contingent valuation studies provides important information for designing Payment-for-Ecosystem-Service (PES) programs. However, the hypothetical markets for contingent valuation and respondents’ unfamiliarity...

We study a farmer’s decision to convert traditional crop land into growing dedicated energy crops, taking in account sunk conversion costs, uncertainties in traditional and energy crop returns, and learning. The optimal decision rules differ significantly from the expected net present value...

As contractual agriculture expands, contract design offers a non-regulatory opportunity to reduce non-point source pollution. A risk programming analysis of seed corn contract designs illustrates a tractable empirical principal-agent model, and shows that grower risk preferences affect contract...