Although few in number, studies consistently find that price explains little, if any, of the variation in profit across farms. This contrasts with farmers' opinions regarding the importance of price, as well as the use of price supports as a primary policy instrument. Using farm level data from...

While not ignoring risk, agricultural cooperatives tend to accommodate risk through the holding of internal capital reserves rather than engage in active risk management. A lack of information regarding the risk, returns, and the effect on cooperative financial performance of both traditional...

This paper employs a Bayesian hierarchical approach to estimate individual expected performance of market advisory programs in corn and soybeans. This estimation procedure is a conservative approach compared to traditional estimation, since it reduces estimation error in the expected gains from...

Using survey responses of Illinois corn farmers to differently framed yield questions, we examine their subjective information by relating stated yields and risk to the corresponding objective county measures. The results show that farm-level yields can be best characterized by soliciting...

This research examines the potential basis behavior and hedging effectiveness for the Minneapolis Grain Exchange's (MGE) cash settled corn contract. MGE futures cash settle to the National Corn Index (NCI) calculated by Data Transmission Network (DTN). Focusing on seven regions in Illinois, the...

This study examines strategies for hedging processing operations generally and uses soybean processing as a specific example. The approach assumes a mean-variance utility function but because of the focus on hedging, the analysis concentrates on risk minimization with risk defined as the...

In developing optimal hedge ratios for the soybean processing margin, many authors have illustrated the importance of considering the interactions between the cash and futures prices for soybeans, soybean oil, and soybean meal. Conditional as well as time-varying hedge ratios have been examined,...

The USDA WASDE (World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates) price forecasts are published in the form of an interval, but typically analyzed as point estimates. Thus, all information about uncertainty imbedded in the forecast is ignored. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy...

In this paper we study futures market depth by examining the price path due to order imbalances thereby allowing us to directly gain insight in the execution costs due to a lack of market depth We propose a two dimensional market depth measure in which the price path due to order imbalances is...

Preconditioning calf programs, while not new, are becoming more prevalent. They provide benefits to cow-calf producers while adding value for feeder cattle buyers. However, questions remain regarding the marginal returns from marketing preconditioned calves exceeds the marginal costs for...