State branding programs have become an integral part of many food marketing efforts throughout the United States. State pride may play a role in consumers’ demands for local food products that satisfy desires for connectedness through the food supply chain.However, little research has studied measures of consumers’ state pride, i.e.ethnocentrism. In this study, we develop and calculate consumers’ state pride scores based on survey responses from consumers across an eight-state region. We find that most consumers do not have extremely high or low levels of state pride, but the probability of choosing one’s own state brand is predominately affected by their state pride score.
The type of handling system (i.e., traditional small box versus semi-automatic binhandling) distinguishes the two main types of existing commercial wild blueberrymechanical harvesters commonly used by farmers in Atlantic Canada and thenortheastern United States. However, their impacts on costs and returns to farmers havenot been evaluated. Partial budgeting (PB) methods were used to quantify and compareeconomic performance of the two technologies. Stochastic PB involved probabilisticsensitivity analysis, where multiple parameters were allowed to vary simultaneously, andthe results evaluated. Net change in profit, estimated using a deterministic PB modelbased on two alternative measures of harvest rate (tonnes ha-1and hours ha-1) for 2017data was CAD$0.52 tonne-1, and CAD$674 ha-1, and implies that switching from the small box handling system to the semi-automatic bin handling system is economic allyviable. Economic performance using stochastic PB analysis is consistent with the deterministic model results.
With increasing fresh-fruit import dependence, it is important for the United States to analyze trends and future trade scenarios, and develop strategies to achieve economic efficiency in the international market. Import demand elasticities are effective for analyzing trends and predicting possible development scenarios for international trade. This study uses a Source-Differentiated Almost Ideal Demand System to estimate elasticities of demand for mangoes and guavas, bananas, avocadoes, and papayas imported from NAFTA, DR-CAFTA, and MERCOSUR; and subsequently employs these elasticity estimates to measure the expected impact of import tariffs on the U.S. imports of fresh fruits from Mexico.
This study examines the impact of E.coli recalls on U.S. meat demand. Quarterly E.coli recalls from 1994-2016 are used to develop E.coli indices specific to beef, pork, and poultry collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Food Safety Inspection Service. The findings of the absolute price version of the Rotterdam model with structural shifters suggest that recalls have no significant impact on meat demand as a whole. This implies consumers are less sensitive to E.coli recalls than previously found.
Using the 2014 Nielsen Homescan panel data, the Heckman two-stage sample selection model is used to estimate the likelihood of purchasing organic or conventional flour as well as the quantity purchased of organic and conventional flour. A number of demographic variables are found to be statistically significant impacting the likelihood of purchasing organic and conventional flour. Conditional on the decision whether to buy organic or conventional flour, the estimation of the second-stage equations shows that the statistically significant factors of the demand for organic flour are own price, household income, household size, age, employment status, and race, while for conventional flour significant factors are own price, organic flour price, household income, household size, education level, marital status, and race. Based on the calculated own-price elasticities of demand for organic and conventional flour, the demand for both flour types is inelastic. Cross-price elasticities of demand suggest an asymmetric pattern between organic and conventional flour demand. Finally, based on the negative income elasticity estimates, organic and conventional flour are inferior goods.
Alfalfa hay exports have surged considerably since 2009, with 95% of shipments being supplied from seven western states. Many of these states are major U.S. dairy and alfalfa hay producers; California is the nation’s largest producer of both commodities. We investigate these alfalfa exports from the year 2000 until present, seeking to determine if the spike in their dynamic evolution has resulted in a structural break, and find significant evidence of this for the year 2009. Just as important, we investigate whether there has been a change in the dynamic long-run relationships between California dairy and alfalfa markets for the periods’ pre- and post-break of alfalfa exports. We identify significant differences among these two periods; specifically, the long-run equilibrium between milk and alfalfa hay prices and its speed of adjustment following a shock to either market. Results have implications for risk management and policy analysis.
This study advances knowledge about strategies new food businesses can use to achieve legitimacy by continuing the scale development work of Johnson et al. (2018). We test, extend, and validate an instrument used to measure food/Agribusiness legitimacy. A principal component analysis of data from a 50-item questionnaire instrument administered to food businesses that have worked with a land-grant university food processing center revealed an underlying nine-component structure which contributed to about 80% of the explained variance in the pattern of relationships among questionnaire items, differing from previous studies. We discuss these differences and make recommendations to refine the scale.
Over the past decade, construction of starch-based ethanol plants has expanded rapidly across the United States to meet growing (largely policy-induced) ethanol consumption. On the one hand, locating an ethanol plant in a small rural city potentially benefits a local economy significantly in terms of increased job opportunities and tax revenue. In the Texas High Plains, however, there are growing concerns that the introduction of a new demand source for sorghum as feedstock is likely to affect farmers’ cropping decisions in the area around the ethanol plant. Thus, it is important to quantify how the opening of an ethanol plant causes farmers to alter their planting decisions. This study models the cotton acreage response from 2002 to 2014, using county-level panel data collected from Hockley County, Texas, that currently has a 40 million gallon per year sorghum-based ethanol plant in operation. Spatial econometric models are employed to account for any spatial dependence and other factors are used to control for prices, water availability, and other production decision variables. The spatial tests results show that cotton area planted around Hockley County is highly clustered. But after controlling for spatial autocorrelation and dependence, the model results suggest that the existence of the ethanol plant has no effect on the surrounding cotton acreage.
“Liability of Newness” reflects the reality that only half of new businesses survive the first five years and less than one-third survive beyond 10 years. This study is designed to help new businesses—and assist organizations (e.g. universities, nonprofits) —address this liability of newness and achieve “legitimacy” by exploring the connection between organizational legitimacy and firm performance. A survey of food businesses in the Western United States was performed to examine legitimacy strategies and legitimacy forms. This study offers a first-ever quantified look at legitimacy and its impact and, as such, offers some answers and questions for future consideration.
Natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts often cause significant economic damages for agricultural producers and agribusinesses. Agricultural economics departments and colleges of agriculture are often asked to help compute economic losses resulting from such events. The resulting loss estimates are used to lobby for various forms of disaster relief and to show that regions, states, or commodities are eligible for existing government programs. This paper documents how agricultural economists and their colleagues at The University of Georgia went about estimating losses suffered in Georgia from Hurricane Michael in October 2018.
By the time a Thoroughbred stallion produces four crops of foals, the success of his entire breeding career is largely determined. One hundred and sixty-three Thoroughbred sires beginning their breeding careers between 2002 and 2005 are tracked for five consecutive years. Adopting a hedonic pricing method, we observe how determinants of stud fees change as new information about the sire’s quality becomes available. Results show that initially, a sire’s own racetrack performance is influential in predicting stud fees; eventually, this information becomes irrelevant as information about progeny performance (both on the racetrack and in the auction ring) is learned.
We evaluate the interactions in four markets among expert forecasts, futures prices, and realized cash hog prices. Vector autoregression findings indicate a dynamic interaction among futures and cash markets, with some past forecasts affecting cash prices. Contemporaneous causal analysis reveals causation of cash prices by futures prices and by some expert forecasts, and is consistent with the causal ordering of prior-day futures, subsequent forecasts, and cash prices realized one quarter later. Forecast error decompositions indicate expert forecasts are substantially influenced by futures prices, but have more influence on futures and cash hog prices than previously identified.
Production and consumption of conventional and organic apples in the U.S. have changed dramatically over the past two decades. Despite a drop in the conventional apple production, production of organic apples shows a double-digit growth. Demand for organic apples also continues to outpace growth in overall organic fruit sales. In this research, we investigate whether these changes have an impact on price adjustment dynamics between these two qualitatively differentiated products. We use a Markov-Switching Assymetric Vector Error Ccorrection model (MS-AVECM) and weekly U.S. national retail prices for the 2010-2015 period for three varieties of apples: Gala, Fuji, and Red Delicious. The MS-AVECM results indicate three Markov-Switching regimes can be defined for the three varieties during the study period. The results show there are different short-run price adjustment daynamics in each of these regimes and asymmetric price transmission behavior between organic and conventional apples. Result indicates that apple varity plays important role in the price relationship between organic and conventional apple. These findings have implications for farmers, wholesalers, retailers, policy makers, as well as consumers.
Recent work shows that the weather affects U.S. labor productivity and supply (e.g., Deryugina and Hsiang, 2016). Although agricultural economists have identified factors that affect farmers' allocation of labor between on- and off- farm work, they have not related labor supply to weather. We estimate the impact of temperature and precipitation on individual on-farm labor supply using 10 years of the Agricultural Resource Management Survey data. We find that temperature and farm operator labor supply have a parabolic relationship with a minimum at 61oF. We compute that one 1oF increase in annual temperature translates into 8.5 million hours of reduced country-wide farm operator labor valued at about $188 million. Precipitation has a significant but negligible marginal impact on the operator labor supply, consistent with the existing literature.
