Consumer demand for food that is locally produced,marketed, and consumed is generating increased interest in local food throughout the United States. As interest grows, so do questions about what constitutes local food and what characterizes local food systems. What Is the Issue? This study...

This case study reviews the economic, social, and environmental benefits associated with organic agriculture in the U.S. These benefits include measurable impacts and unmeasurable impacts that affect both agricultural and consumer systems in fundamental ways. Both are discussed in this study....

Advances in genetic engineering involve more than scientific breakthroughs. Potential economic effects - some possibly undesirable - also need to be considered.

A utility-consistent model of participation and participation intensity choices for a voluntary soil conservation program is developed. A modified form of Roy's Identity is used to derive a two-equation system that links the discrete, dichotomous choice (participation) and the continuous choice...

We develop measures of technical and allocative efficiency of producers in marketing certified organic products. A stochastic output distance frontier and the associated revenue share equations are estimated using comprehensive U.S. data on certified organic producers. Farm-level measures of...

Although organic farm activities seem to demand year-round employees, seasonal workers dominate the organic labor market. We use the elasticity of complementarity to assess input substitutability and predict adjustments. Farm size and farm workers are complementary inputs. Incentives that...

Residue management system (RMS) offers increase productivity gain to farmers by increasing the organic matter. Farmers have failed to realize this gain and consequently have not adopted RMS in cotton cultivation. Benefit of adopting RMS system appears sooner than farmers would think.

We test the likelihood of expansion for six market sectors based on the similarities between counties with and counties without organic markets. Results indicate that sales projections are overstated. Growth imbalance will continue to favor the West and North Central regions over the South and...