This paper examines the impacts of potential higher prices and short supplies for energy inputs used in the production of agricultura1 commodities. We focus specifically on the issue of the extent to which the cost or availability of energy inputs might lead to a situation in which the United...

econfoodag.pdf is 620 color slides arranged in 17 chapters; bweconfoodag.pdf is set up for printing on a black-and-white printer two-to-a-page

This is a microeconomic theory book designed for upper-division undergraduate students in economics and agricultural economics. This is a free pdf download of the entire book. As the author, I own the copyright. Amazon markets bound print copies of the book at amazon.com at a nominal price for...

It is widely believed that public and private research and educational activities have led to rapid advances in the production of crops and livestock, making farmers far better off than they would have been had these technological advances not taken place. The cash receipts data for the postwar...

In this paper I first discuss the role of external capital constraints in limiting the ability of farmers to implement new technologies. Via a theoretical model, I illustrate the role of farm size in determining if a particular cost-reducing technology is implemented. I show that the cost...

It's time to take a close look at recent trends agriculture and in rural areas and speculate where these trends might lead. What are the important forces that will shape the future agriculture and rural areas in the 21st century? What are the implications of these forces on the programs that...

In 1973 the Governor of Kentucky's Council of Agriculture commissioned a Task Force at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture to develop estimates of Kentucky's Agricultural potentials. Product potentials were estimated for 1980 and for the "long-term" to 1992. Similarly, capital and...

Why did US farmers fare poorly even as most other segments of the US economy prospered during the 1990s? I develop three arguments to explain why US agriculture was prospered in the 1970s but has underperformed relative to the rest of the US economy in most of the 1980s and 1990s. Measures of...