Gene-editing technologies have the potential to address many of the critical challenges facing agriculture today. Yet consumers' perception of the technology, while critical for applications. We conduct two studies and elicit US consumers' support for gene-edited products using the donation experiment method. We document that, on average, participants support gene-editing technologies, and this finding is robust to different survey techniques using is more likely to affect food product alternatives in domestic markets. Our findings are useful for controversial technologies have limited or no current market applications.
The spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) has threatened the future of the hunting economy in North America. A discrete choice experiment survey of deer hunters showed a progressively higher premium for sites with lower CWD rates, revealing the trade-off between the disease prevalence and other site attributes. While this study focuses on the case of CWD in white-tailed deer, the findings help explain how the externality from declining game health affects hunters' welfare and how it reflects in lease values.
Over 6 decades, global and national agricultural research and development (R&D) investments have driven major technological advances in rice production, enhancing food and livelihood security across South and Southeast Asia. Yet public R&D spending growth has recently slowed. This study evaluates the net economic contributions of rice varietal breeding programs by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its national partners in Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam. Results show that research investments have yielded positive and robust economic returns, with yield gains far exceeding research costs, underscoring the enduring value of collaborative international and national R&D for sustainable rice productivity growth.
An Exact Affine Stone Index model is adopted to investigate the demand structure for dairy and nondairy milk types in the United States, using weekly time-series data from January 2017 to August 2023. The demands for almond, cashew, and oat plant-based milk alternatives (PBMAs) and lactose-free and traditional white milk are elastic, but inelastic for coconut, rice, and soy PBMA and organic milk. Almond and oat are complements, while cashew and coconut are substitutes. Lactose-free milk, traditional white and organic milk are substitutes. Cow's milk categories and each of the PBMA categories are substitutes. The respective dairy and nondairy milk products are necessities.
This study evaluates the economic impacts of foreign mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the United States agrifood sector from 2010 to 2019. We discover differential effects based on the type of country from which the acquiring company originates. M&As from developing countries negatively affect gross domestic product and employment, suggesting a strategy of acquiring capabilities and resources rather than improving productivity. We find that Chinese acquisitions are associated with higher wages and employment, though the effect on output is mixed. Conversely, M&As from developed countries are associated with decreased wages and employment, likely from implementing advanced technologies that reduce labor needs.
This study investigates farmers' preferences for policies promoting climate adaptation strategies. The results indicate that farmers prefer policies including technology subsidies, technical training, and agricultural insurance. Furthermore, the analysis reveals significant complementarity effects between technology subsidies and technical training, technology subsidies and agricultural insurance as well as agricultural insurance and agricultural production trusteeship. Conversely, substitution effects are observed between technical training and agricultural production trusteeship as well as technical training and agricultural insurance. Farmers exposed to higher disaster severity prefer policies emphasizing agricultural insurance, while those with heightened risk perception are less inclined toward policies involving agricultural production trusteeship.
Enhanced efficiency nitrogen fertilizers (EENFs) promise improved nitrogen use efficiency by better synchronizing nutrient supply with crop uptake, yet inconsistent field performance and uncertain private net returns help explain persistently low adoption rates. We conducted a Bayesian meta-analysis of 60 North American corn field experiments to quantify yield and economic impacts of four major EENF types. On average, EENFs increased corn yield by 3.24% relative to conventional fertilizers, with yield gains generally exceeding breakeven costs at current prices, though profitability varied across products and market conditions. These findings inform targeted EENF deployment for sustainable nitrogen management.
An evolving policy landscape is set to drastically alter agricultural land use throughout the southwestern US. More stringent groundwater management policies are already diminishing water allocations for agriculture, prompting significant increases in land fallowing. While fallowing supports water conservation objectives, it may also damage human health by creating soil conditions ideal for the growth and transmission of Valley fever, a potentially severe respiratory disease contracted from inhaling soil spores. This paper empirically addresses the relationship between fallowing and Valley fever, providing novel evidence of the potential negative spillovers and unintended consequences associated with water management policies.
Undocumented workers are an important part of the workforce in many sectors of the US economy, particularly in the agrifood sector. The Trump administration is deporting undocumented workers. This study quantifies the impacts of a mass deportation policy on the US economy and on key sectors using a multiregional general equilibrium model that includes an undocumented workforce and the movement of migrants across countries. Deportation of 30% of the undocumented workforce will reduce economic activities in all industries (more so in agriculture, food processing, leisure, and construction) and lower the US GDP by $128.56 billion. Furthermore, labor shortfall due to deportation will increase cost of production and raise food prices.
Nitrogen (N) response models are often estimated as plateau-type models. Existing plateau models are nonlinear in the parameters. The model introduced here is a multidegree spline plateau model, which is linear in parameters. The linearity allows using approximation methods so that estimating a spatially varying coefficient model with Bayesian Kriging could be a commercially feasible approach to guide precision N applications. With proper knot selection, the spline plateau model can fit as well as the linear and quadratic plateau models. The computational efficiency of the spline plateau model was demonstrated using R-INLA, and it provided fast and accurate estimation.
We examine how diagnosed lactose intolerance and overweight/obesity affect household purchases of dairy milk and plant-based milk alternatives (PBMAs) from 2011 to 2020 using Nielsen Homescan and health survey data. Applying a Heckman two-step model, we find that households with lactose-intolerant members increase purchases of lactose-free milk and PBMAs while reducing dairy milk. Households with overweight or obese members shift toward fat-free milk and away from whole milk and PBMAs. These results highlight the importance of health conditions in shaping food demand and underscore implications for product diversification and targeted marketing in both the dairy and nondairy sectors.
Recreational fisheries increasingly face pressure to balance diverse angler preferences with ecological sustainability. This study uses best-worst scaling to evaluate how anglers in Utah's Blue Ribbon Fisheries prioritize site attributes. Results indicate high value on both abundant fish and natural beauty. Latent class analysis identifies two segments: catch-focused and ecofocused anglers. Conditional logit and random parameter logit models highlight the importance of accounting for heterogeneity in site choice. Findings suggest that uniform regulations may neglect angler diversity. Integrated management enhances fish stocks, water quality, and scenic conditions, while addressing crowding and infrastructure better aligns with angler priorities and sustainability.
This study explores the impacts of the deportation of undocumented workers on various segments of the poultry supply chain using a model comprising domestic workers and undocumented workers. The results show that the deportation of 20% of undocumented workers in the poultry supply chain increases the wage rates by 7.82%, which raises the cost of production and chicken product prices. Lack of labor availability due to this deportation policy causes production to decline in every segment of the poultry supply chain. Poultry producers' welfare declines by $63.85 million. Price inflation for chicken products occurs, ranging from 1.41% for feet to 2.94% for ready-to-eat products. Domestic consumption of chicken products falls, ranging from 0.73% for whole chickens to 2.11% for ready-to-eat products. US consumers' surplus declines by $1.94 billion.
We compare the accuracy of crop condition models from existing literature on forecasting US corn and soybean yields. The data for the study consist of weekly state and national crop condition ratings from the USDA over 1986 through 2022. A battery of statistical tests is applied to out-of-sample forecasts over 2000-2022. While there are differences in the accuracy of the models, test results are uniform in suggesting that no model has statistically significant superior forecast accuracy. A key finding is that relatively simple models perform just as well as more complex and computationally demanding models.
We investigate the impacts of a short-lived change in Missouri's livestock marketing regulations intended to encourage homogeneous pricing for livestock sold in Missouri. Missouri's Livestock Marketing Law of 1999 changed the legal structure governing livestock purchases, creating requirements for meatpackers to adjust purchasing behavior to prevent discriminatory pricing. The legislation resulted in a decrease in the number of hogs produced and sold in Missouri. The impacts were detrimental to the Missouri livestock sector, leading policymakers to eventually abandon uniform pricing standards.
This study estimates an aggregate agricultural industry dynamic structural gravity model with capital accumulation to assess the relationship between capital accumulation and determinants of total factor productivity (TFP) in agricultural trade flows. The Armington elasticity of substitution is 1.47. Institutional variables-government investment, business regulations, legal enforcement of contracts, and communication technology-are key drivers of global agricultural TFP. The capital stock transition parameter is 34.6%. Counterfactual analyses show that increasing all countries' TFP and improving institutional quality in countries with low-quality institutions generally raises exports, imports, output, capital stock, and welfare.
This study evaluates the impact of groundwater restrictions under Kansas's Local Enhanced Management Area program, focusing on the Sheridan-6 (SD6) region from 2013 to 2023. Using difference-in-differences regressions and well meter panel data, we find that SD6 irrigators reduced water use intensity by 16% and pumping costs by $5.48 per acre. No significant changes in irrigated acreage occurred. Differences from the control group decreased after 2018, when irrigators outside SD6 adopted less stringent water-use policies. Results suggest that locally governed, farmer-led restrictions can reduce water use without diminishing productivity, though policy diffusion and adaptive responses complicate long-term measurement of conservation outcomes.
This study examines 1,009 articles published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (JARE) from 1992 to 2024. It identifies 24 research topics using latent Dirichlet allocation and explores how topics and author collaboration networks influence citations. Article citation data from Scopus show that consumer, farm resource, and crop insurance articles lead overall and yearly citation growth. Niche topics demonstrate high citation intensity. Topic choice and certain types of author collaboration significantly predict citation counts. The findings underscore JARE's scholarly influence and highlight its importance as a journal for disseminating impactful research in agricultural and resource economics.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt changes in food purchases and consumer behavior because of both supply and demand shocks. Stay-at-home orders resulted in large reductions in demand for food consumed in food-away-from-home settings. At the same time, the demand for food purchased at grocery stores and online spiked. We analyze the association between pandemic, related media coverage, and prices of specialty crop commodities. We find that prices of specialty crops consumed mostly away from home exhibited a demonstrative negative relationship with the pandemic and associated media coverage compared to specialty crops consumed mostly at home.
We find that farmers' precautionary motives have small impact on optimal corn seeding rates, contrary to their significant influence on savings and asset decisions in other settings. Our conceptual model shows that precautionary motives increase seeding rates when higher seeding rates reduce yield risk and decrease them when higher seeding rates increase yield risk. Analysis of Ohio and Illinois field data reveals a U-shaped yield risk response to seeding rates. Simulations indicate a 0.2% seeding rate increase in Ohio and a 0.19% decrease in Illinois due to precautionary motives, while yield insurance reduces optimal seeding rates in both states by up to 2%.
