Fewer small meat processing plants combined with increased demand for locally-grown and process-verified meat products in recent years have spurred interest in the construction of producer-owned processing facilities. To help producers and Extension specialists develop preliminary feasibility...

Wheat regression models that account for the effect of weather are developed to forecast wheat yield and quality. Spatial lag effects are included. Wheat yield, protein, and test weight level are strongly influenced by weather variables. The forecasting power of the yield and protein models was...

The major finding is that liquidity costs in futures options market are two to three times higher thanliquidity costs in the futures market. Liquidity cost is one potential factor to consider when choosingbetween hedging with a futures contract or with an option contract. While there is...

Futures prices when combined with a basis forecast provide a reliable way to forecast cashprices. The most popular method of forecasting basis is historical moving averages. Given therecent failure of longer moving averages proposed by previous studies, this research reassessespast...

The Risk-Rating Model is designed to give extension specialists, teachers, and producers a method to analyze production, marketing, and financial risks. These risks may be analyzed either individually or simultaneously. The risk associated with each enterprise, for all combinations of...

The major finding is that liquidity costs in futures options market are two to three times higher than liquidity costs in the futures market. Liquidity cost is one potential factor to consider when choosing between hedging with a futures contract or with an option contract. While there is...

Futures prices when combined with a basis forecast provide a reliable way to forecast cash prices. The most popular method of forecasting basis is historical moving averages. Given the recent failure of longer moving averages proposed by previous studies, this research reassesses past...

The evolution of Cooperative Extension Service techniques used to teach decision making in a risk environment is examined. Interviews of selected Cooperative Extension economists indicate that research methods used to evaluate and describe risk are more complex than those used in extension...