Volume 48, Issue 3, September 2023

September, 2023

Mobile Internet Use and Climate Adaptation: Empirical Evidence from Vietnamese Coffee Farmers

By: Kahsay, Goytom Abraha; Garcia, Nerea Turreira; Bosselmann, Aske Skovmand
This paper investigates the association between mobile internet use (MIU) and climate adaptation among Vietnamese coffee farmers. We find that farmers with access to mobile internet are more likely to take adaptation measures and obtain higher coffee yields using both simple regression and instrumental variable models. Our data suggest that the adaptation results are driven by changes in water and crop management practices and mediated by farmers' access to weather forecasts and farm price information. Policy support for MIU may enhance farmers' climate resilience in developing countries.
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September, 2023

Rural Broadband Connectivity and Access to US Government Farm Support

By: Graven, Atticus; Schaefer, K. Aleks
The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) was unique in that it was the first US farm support program that allowed producers to enroll through an online portal rather than in person through a local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office. This research investigates the extent to which broadband connectivity affected access to US government farm support under CFAP. We find that a 1-percentage-point increase in county-level broadband availability is associated with a $2.13 increase in county payments per capita under CFAP. However, this relationship is inherently nonlinear along the rural--urban divide.
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September, 2023

Identifying Constraints to Rural Economic Development: A Development Guidance Function Approach

By: Koirala, Samjhana; Jakus, Paul M.; Watson, Philip
We propose a method that incorporates specific business needs and community goals to identify community assets that most constrain local economic development. Access to a managerial workforce was the most common highly ranked constraint, but the set of most constraining assets varies across communities. Thus, a one-size-fits-all development policy is not appropriate. We also find that constraint rankings are highly correlated among communities that share tourism potential, that share energy resources, or that rely upon production agriculture. Development practitioners may craft a suite of development policies, each tailored to communities of a given typology.
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September, 2023

Reductions in National Forest Campground Reservation Demand from Wildfire

By: Lee, Marissa C.; Suter, Jordan F. ; Bayham, Jude
The impacts of wildfire are widely felt across the United States and expected to increase in coming years. However, little is known about the long-term impacts of wildfire on recreation. We evaluate the impact of wildfire on reservations to US Forest Service (USFS) campgrounds and find that wildfires decrease camping reservations up to 6 years after a fire occurs. The impacts vary across USFS regions, and our analysis reveals the important role of forest cover in determining the magnitude and duration of impacts. Our results imply that wildfires reduce benefits to campers, which can translate into less spending in nearby communities.
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September, 2023

Selectivity Bias and Cattle Price in the Cattle Procurement Market

By: Hildebrand, Kayla; Chung, Chinjin
We examine selectivity bias in the US cattle procurement market. We hypothesize that feedlots optimize profits by selecting specific cattle to sell either in the cash market or through alternative marketing agreements. High-quality cattle are more likely to be sold in the alternative market as prices are not fully calculated until after harvest, allowing carcass quality premiums to be added. Consequently, it is assumed that low-quality cattle are sold in the cash market to avoid potential carcass discounts. Depending on a feedlotÕs size, relationship with packers, and marketing costs, these selection assumptions may not be accurate and bias prices.
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September, 2023

CowÐCalf Producer Preferences for Bull Genomic Enhanced Expected Progeny Differences

By: Smith, Katy V. ; DeLong, Karen L.; Griffith, Andrew P.; Boyer, Christopher N.; Martinez, Charley; Jensen, Kimberley L.
Genomic enhanced expected progeny differences (GE-EPDs) combine expected progeny differences (EPDs) with DNA information to improve EPD accuracy values. In 2020, Tennessee cattle producers completed a between-subjects choice experiment for bulls marketed with either EPDs or GE-EPDs. Panel Tobit regression results indicate that, on average across all considered EPDs, producers were not willing to pay significantly more for GE-EPDs than for EPDs. However, producers were willing to pay more for the calving ease direct EPD if it was genomic enhanced. This is the first known study to evaluate producersÕ value of improved accuracy scores associated with GE-EPDs.
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September, 2023

Land Rental Markets, Specialization, and Rural Household Income: Evidence from the North China Plain

By: Wang, Qian; Li, Fan; Heerink, Nico; Yu, Jin; Fleskens, Luuk; Ritsema, Coen J.
Using panel data for the years 2013, 2015, and 2017 collected through field surveys in eight counties in the North China Plain, we examine the relationship between smallholdersÕ land rental behavior and their (agricultural) incomes, with a particular focus on heterogeneous specialization among smallholders. We find that farming-specialized households experience a significant higher increase in agricultural income and a larger decrease in poverty incidence by renting in land than nonspecialized households. Off-farm specialized households had a decreased likelihood of being poor by renting out land, whereas nonspecialized households experienced no decrease in poverty incidence after renting out land.
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September, 2023

Stocks of Wealth and the Value-Added Food and Agriculture Sector

By: Jablonski, Becca B.R.; Pender, John; Bauman, Allison; Rupasingha, Anil
Despite substantial effort to conceptualize wealth as supporting positive community economic development, little research tests the relationship between development outcomes and community wealth. This research assesses the relationship between the value-added food and agriculture business (VAFAB) sector and stocks of community wealth by leveraging a new dataset of stocks of community wealth and National Establishment Time Series data. We find significant relationships between the growth of VAFAB establishments and employment and stocks of community wealth. These results have implications for economic developers and policy makers in prioritizing investments should they want to grow the local VAFAB sector.
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September, 2023

Investigating the Efficacy of Government Rebates: A Case of the Smart Irrigation System

By: Lai, Yufeng; Yue, Chengyan; Watkins, Eric; Barnes, Mike
Government rebates provide monetary incentives to encourage consumers' adoption of eco-friendly technologies. Understanding how consumers perceive the value of rebate is crucial to policy makers. We use the smart irrigation system as an example and design choice experiments that present rebates in two formats: the total device cost and the cost consumers needed to pay versus the total device cost and the rebate value. We find that consumers discount the value of the rebate more when presented with rebate value. Additionally, the framing of incentives has a spillover effect on the perceived value of a seemingly unrelated attribute (i.e., water saving).
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September, 2023

The Impacts of Enhanced Rice Quality Genetics on Food Security and Producer Profitability

By: Nalley, Lawton Lanier; Durand-Morat, Alvaro
Increasing milling potential could provide more food for human consumption at current yields and input uses. We estimate the impact of increasing rice milling yields in Arkansas from 2004 to 2020 using actual yields by variety. The results suggest that a marginal 1% increase in the percentage of whole kernels could increase the number of rice rations by 0.89 million to 1.05 million annually, or up to 2.94 million and 3.5 million annually if the genetics of all Arkansas rice were at least at the standard of a popular purebred variety. Improving rice milling yields can have significant food security implications.
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