Sustaining natural resource stocks especially those underpinning the capacity to produce food is key to most definitions of sustainable development. Yet troubling evidence has surfaced of instances where the rural poor were forced to sacrifice long-term sustainability for the sake of near-term...

The most severe challenges to sustainable development occur where many poor people struggle to eke out a living from marginal lands. In some cases, high human populations on fragile lands have led agricultural productivity to deteriorate (García-Barrios and García-Barrios, 1990, Mink, 1993,...

The authors present an overview of agricultural systems models. Beginning with why systems are modeled and for what purposes, the paper examines types of agricultural systems and associated model types. The broad categories range from pictorial (iconic) models to descriptive analogue models to...

Data on agricultural and natural resource management typically have spatial patterns related to the landscapes from which they came. Consequently, econometric models designed to explain the determinants of humans' natural resource management practices or their outcomes often have spatial...

A conceptual model is developed to measure the value of information from in-field soil sensing technologies as compared with grid and other soil sampling methods. Soil sensing offers greater spatial accuracy and the potential to apply inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer immediately, avoiding...

This paper introduces a spatial bioeconomic model for study of potential cellulosic biomass supply at regional scale. By modeling the profitability of alternative crop production practices, it captures the opportunity cost of replacing current crops by cellulosic biomass crops. The model draws...