In recent decades there has been a substantial increase in the scale of production and the use of production contracts in the hog sector. This paper explores empirically whether these two phenomena are related by examining whether the use of production contracts has allowed finish hog operations...

The objective of this study is to test the widely‐held belief that the effect of education has a positive impact on technology adoption. Using 2006 Agricultural Resource Management Survey "ARMS" data, we estimate a simultaneous equations model to integrate farmers’ labor allocation decision...

2010 AAEA Presidential Address; forthcoming in January 2011 AJAE in shortened version.

The increasing use of production contracts in the hog sector has reduced the number of spot market transactions, raised concerns about price manipulation and helped to spur legislation requiring price reporting by packers. Using data from the 2002 and 2007 Censuses of Agriculture, this study...

Ultrasound technology is available for accurately measuring intramuscular fat (IMF) in live pigs. This report provides information on the costs for pig producers and processors to implement this technology and what consumers are willing to pay for pork with improved levels of intramuscular fat....

The U.S. nursery industry is highly complex, and affected on their demand side by the construction industry and on their factor supply side by the market for low-skill labor, which in turn is influenced by gyrating construction activity as well as southern-border immigration. We examine an...

In the past 20 years the average scale of hog operations has expanded more than fourfold, and some of the new large-scale hog feeding operations have been opposed by residents in some communities. While the environmental effects of such production have been relatively well studied, less examined...

The success of seed-fertilizer technologies and government subsidies in attaining nearly self-sufficient rice production in the mid-1980s encouraged the Indonesian government soon afterward to shift resources away from food crops and toward export-oriented crops. These shifts were reinforced by...