The paper considers the benefit to agricultural producers from commodity price insurance that provides in every year, but in advance of the resolution of production and price uncertainty, a minimum price for a fixed or variable portion of production. Under the assumption that producers do not...

Membership in the European Community (EC) for Greece, Spain, and Portugal may reduce trade between the United States and the EC in selected commodities; prospects for a North American Common Market are not bright; and the diversion of agricultural crops from export to fuel alcohol production...

The problem of simultaneously identifying and controlling a time-varying, perfectly-observed linear system is posed. The parameters are assumed to obey a Markov structure and are estimated with a Kalman filter. The problem can be solved conceptually by dynamic programming, but even with a...