Specialty crop agriculture may be affected by immigration reform given that most farm workers are foreign-born and unauthorized for U.S. employment. Controlling for selection on legal status and job type according to skill level, this research examines the wage effects for workers with different...

Specialty crop farmers have expressed concern about labor shortages and cost increases which may arise with immigration reform. The large-scale mechanization of the Florida sugarcane harvest during the 1970s/80s serves as an historical example of how technologies evolved due to changes in local...

A cost function approach of induced innovation is used to measure the biases in U.S. agricultural technology between 1969-1999. The rate of technological change is explained by socioeconomic variables. The post-IRCA results show that an increasingly illegal workforce significantly induces...

The prospect of immigration policy reform has renewed growers’ concerns of serious labor shortages and cost increases given that a large portion of the workforce is unauthorized for U.S. employment. This concern of labor shortages and cost increases is more serious for specialty crop...

Immigration reform may significantly impact the specialty crops sector since more than half of the workforce is foreign-born and undocumented. Based on data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey, the trends pertaining to workers' legal status, employment and wage rates in the U.S. and...

Using National Agricultural Workers Survey data, we estimate U.S. farm worker wage differentials by legal status. In order to adequately correct sample selection bias, we develop a Heckman-type two-stage method with an ordered probit model in the first stage and a wage equation model in the...

Optimization models are developed to determine grazing alternatives for individual dryland producers. Models alternatives include wheat, sorghum-sudan, summer perennial grass, and native range. Precipitation risk and price risk are estimated for seasonal production alternatives, and options that...

Heavy withdrawals from the most dependable source of groundwater in the Texas Panhandle, the Ogallala Aquifer, create an impending need for implementing water conservation policies. This study evaluates the policy option of multi-year water allocation coupled with water use restriction in four...

During extreme drought, grazing is unavailable and hay is expensive. Feed and labor costs in confinement cow-calf systems using concentrate diets are not well established. Cows were wintered in semi-confinement and costs determined. Results indicate that high concentrate confinement systems...

The production potential of OWB forage is evaluated under commercial rotational grazing management. The economic value of the forage is determined by the replacement value of the CP and TDN content. The optimal grazing period is determined where the MVP of grazing an additional day is equal to...