This study examines the question of income adequacy as it relates to the broader issue of an economically viable farm size in the Columbia Basin of Washington State. The issue is especially relevant because of possible limitations on farm size resulting from enforcement of the 1902 Reclamation...

Easily accessible county data produced frontiers which substantially underestimated the reduction in risk by enrolling in the CRP. Furthermore, the county yield data portrayed an unattainable level of utility for a moderately risk averse farmer. Farm level data predicted CRP enrollment similar...

Logit and ordered probit analyses were used to identify factors associated with reduced tillage adoption, continuous spring cropping, and the number of changes made in response to wind erosion. Contrary to previous results for water erosion control, simple perception of a wind erosion problem or...

Weather constitutes the major source for production risk in agriculture. Weather index can be used construct crop insurance that demand less information and can avoid moral hazard and adverse selection problems. Based on mean-variance model, theoretical results on the optimal insurance coverage...

Mathematical programming results revealed that moving toward more flexible agricultural policies would generate substantial economic and environmental gains in a North Carolina diversified cropping region. But in a Washington-Idaho dryland grains region, only the use of relatively new and...

Feedforward networks have powerful approximation capabilities without the "explosion of parameters" problem faced by Fourier and polynomial expansions. This paper first introduces feedforward networks and describes their approximation capabilities, then we address several practical issues faced...

This study analyses three key conservation practices adoption behavior for 266 farmers in eastern Washington. Results revealed (1) that multiple practice adopters contrast more sharply with non-adopters than do adopters of a single practice, and (2) single practice adopters differ more from zero...

Nearly all western states lack comparative advantages for producing corn for ethanol and oilseeds for biodiesel. Despite this disadvantage, most western states have legislated incentives for production of biofuels. Unfavorable changes in price relationships, high transportation costs for...

The study finds that Washington State’s field corn, sugar beet and canola production could satisfy only a small percentage of the State’s annual gasoline or diesel consumption. Linear programming projections for 2008 showed a relatively close match between projected and actual production....