U.S. ethanol production capacity increased more than threefold between 2002 and 2008. We study the effect of this growth on corn acreage. Connecting annual changes in county-level corn acreage to changes in ethanol plant capacities, we find a positive effect on planted corn. The building of a...

Restrictive irrigation water policies established due to e.g. environmental concerns or water scarcity appear to result in declining farm income and arising risk exposure in terms of yield uncertainty. With this in mind, we investigate the potential of index-based weather insurance, which is...

Over-allocation of irrigation water has led to widespread environmental degradation in the Murray-Darling Basin, prompting discussions of the water efficiency performance of irrigated industries, particularly cotton. There is increasing pressure for irrigators to adopt water efficient practices...

The non-use values of the environmental benefits derived from the Conversion of Cropland to Forest and Grassland Program in the Loess Plateau region were estimated using a choice modeling survey both on-site in Xi’an and Ansai and off-site in Beijing. Separate choice models were estimated for...

Environmental, social, and economic attributes are important for the sustainability of a farming system. Resilience is also important, yet has seldom been directly considered in evaluations of economic sustainability. In economic terms, resilience has to do with the capacity of the farm business...

The detectability of invasive organisms influences the feasibility of eradicating an infestation. Search theory offers a framework for defining and measuring detectability, taking account of searcher ability, biological factors and the search environment. In this paper, search theory concepts...

Analyzes the economics of alternative allocations of forested land for uses (dominant-use vs. multiple use) to ensure the survival of a viable population of a forest-dependent species, e.g. the orangutan. The alternatives are (1) setting aside a sufficient fully protected portion of the forest...

Biodiversity is usually regarded as an asset or resource, the stock of which is partly natural and partly determined by humans. Humans both subtract from and add to this stock and consequently, the change in the stock is heterogeneous. This heterogeneity is not taken account of by some authors...