Faster agricultural development requires understanding whether the inverse land size-yield relationship exists or not. To verify the presence of this relationship, this study decomposes a yield index into separate components attributable to (1) efficiency, (2) soil quality, (3) land size, (4)...

Efficient information exchanges between sellers and buyers are essential if prices are to act as a signal for resource allocation in an economy. In the case of seed and planting materials, information on quality traits are often difficult for consumers (farmers) to obtain prior to purchase,...

Using daily data from 182 spatially separated U.S. cash markets for the years 2006-2011, I investigate price discovery for corn. With a large number of cash markets available, I take into account explicitly the issue of market selection, which has been neglected in previous work. I find that...

This study investigates dynamic relationships among U.S. corn cash prices for the years 2006-2011. With daily data from 182 spatially separated markets spreading across 7 states, Iowa (IA), Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Ohio (OH), Minnesota (MN), Nebraska (NE), and Kansas (KS), we apply an error...

We introduce a fast and inexpensive method to rule out potential barriers to adopting a technology. We use this method to asses the role of exogeneous contract enforcement as a barrier to market for Kenya's French Bean export market. We survey 240 farmers in Kirinyaga County, Kenya who were...

Land fragmentation, also known as scattered land holdings, is a common phenomenon in agriculture around the world. In some cases, it has even persisted through government-supported land consolidation programs that aim to improve agricultural productivity. This study evaluates the effect of land...

Numerous national transfer programs around the world are designed with uniform benefit schedules imposed by central governments, but implemented by local governments. The Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in Ethiopia, the second largest safety net in Sub Saharan Africa, is one such program....

Aflatoxins are poisons that occur naturally in the environment. They are produced mainly by the Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus fungi, which can affect many of important staple crops: maize, sorghum, millet, rice, oilseeds, spices, groundnuts, tree nuts, and cassava. Hot, humid,...

Not only does information about food recalls play a vital role in changing the demand for implicated food products, but it also impacts the demand for close substitutes. The study aims to identify the structural change in demand for cookie dough due to the 2009 cookie dough recall of Brand1, one...

In this study, we explore how the acquisition of Smithfield, the world’s larger pork producer, by a Chinese firm Shuanghui, on Chinese consumers’ WTP to meat product using experimental auctions. We conducted two sets of experiments, one when the acquisition was still pending approval and the...