Volume 49, Issue 3, September 2024

September, 2024

Optimal Timing of Removal and Planting of Perennial Crops in Anticipation of a New Cultivar

By: Luckstead, Jeff; Devadoss, Stephen
We develop a perennial crop vintage-investment decision model that incorporates the dynamics of growers’ endogenous removal and planting decisions with uncertainty regarding the future release date of a new variety. We apply the model to coconut cultivation to examine the effects of a new cultivar’s higher yield, lower input requirements, and lower discard rates on the removal and planting decisions for various vintages of existing trees and different announced release dates of new cultivars. Results show that if the new variety is highly (moderately) profitable, growers will alter their planting and removal decisions to plant the new variety sooner (later).
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September, 2024

Are Incomes and Food Safety Risk Related in Retail Food Environments?

By: Amin, Modhurima Dey; McCluskey, Jill J.; Mittelhammer, Ron C.; Wu, Sophie T.; Oliver, Haley F.
We investigate the relationship between the level of food safety risk in retail food establishments and average incomes in surrounding communities. Building on the environmental justice literature, we hypothesize that there is a relationship between community income levels and levels of food safety risk. Using data on the prevalence of Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) obtained from grocery store delis, we find that stores located in census tracts whose residents are in lower income quartiles have greater Lm prevalence. An indicator for American Indian and Alaskan Native residents also has a positive statistically significant relationship with food safety risk.
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September, 2024

Upgrading Food Product Quality: Evaluating the Impact of Competition and Non-Tariff Measures

By: Eum, Jihyun; Sheldon, Ian; Shin, Hyeseon; Thompson, Stanley
In this paper, we analyze the effect of nontariff measures (NTMs) on upgrading food product quality. Based on a multisector Schumpeterian modelÑand given threat of entry, compliance costs, and monopoly profitsÑNTMs are predicted to have heterogeneous effects on quality upgrading. Using disaggregated data for 14 European Union (EU) countries across 18 food industries for the period 2008Ð2019, NTM enforcement is found to deter quality upgrading for products distant from the quality frontier due to compliance costs. Conversely, NTM enforcement stimulates quality upgrading for products close to the quality frontier, given an increased probability of capturing monopoly profits.
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September, 2024

Valuing Monitoring Networks for New Pathogens: The Case of Soybean Rust in the United States

By: Thakur, Tiesta; Hurley, Terrance M.; Homans, Frances R.; Haight, Robert G.
The value of information to farmers from a soybean rust sentinel plot monitoring network is estimated. Monitoring provides value over time from farmers learning about their risk of infection and contemporaneously from farmers making more profitable fungicide applications. Optimizing the spatial configuration of the network reveals the value of information plateaus at around $920M with around 75 sentinel plots. The optimal spatial distribution of sentinel plots differs substantially from historical placements. Optimal sentinel plot placement would have included fewer plots in the Southern United States where the risk of infection is relatively high and more in the Midwest where soybean production is relatively high.
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September, 2024

Economy-Wide Effects of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in Brazil

By: de Menezes, Ta’s C.; Countryman, Amanda M.; Hagerman, Amy D.; Galv‹o de Miranda, S’lvia H.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has caused turbulence in international beef markets over the last 40 years and resulted in severe economic consequences for countries with identified BSE cases. BrazilÕs latest atypical BSE cases occurred in 2021 and 2023, and China banned Brazilian beef imports in each case. This study employs a computable general equilibrium model to assess the economy-wide impacts of BSE in Brazil due to negative domestic and international market reactions. Decreased beef exports lead to welfare losses for Brazil, while BrazilÕs most important competitors in the international market for beef benefit from trade diversion.
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September, 2024

Health News Environment and the Distribution of Diet Quality

By: Liu, Yizao; Cleary, Rebecca; Carlson, Andrea
This article investigates the relationship between the health news environment and the healthfulness of consumersÕ food purchases. We estimate an unconditional quantile regression model using household-level purchase data from 2015Ð2018 and find that more health information is associated with a better diet. The relationship is slightly stronger at the lowest quantile of the Healthy Eating Index distribution, although we cannot reject equivalence with the estimate at the mean for most quantiles. Further, the association between health information and diet quality is weaker in households with higher education, implying that high education households are less likely to be affected by media information.
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September, 2024

Sales Performance of Local Food Marketers: Evaluation of Multivalued Treatment Effects

By: Park, Timothy; Martinez, Steve; Ibrahim, Mohammed
We explore the impact of direct marketing on farm sales applying a treatment effect generated by a multinomial selection process. Producers engaged in direct marketing using diversified outlets experience significant sales gains, as do producers who market primarily to consumers. The direct marketing effect is apparent even after controlling for operator demographics, farming and marketing experience, farm operation characteristics, and geographic effects. Using data from the Local Food Marketing Practices Survey (LFMPS), direct sales are higher by 31% for marketing in diversified channels and 148% for the marketing primarily to retailers, an effect that is relative to those marketing to consumers.
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September, 2024

Factors Affecting the Duration of Agricultural Marketing Orders

By: Johnson, Samantha R.; Brady, Michael P.; McCluskey, Jill J.
Marketing orders are government-supported cartels designed to help farmers by allowing them to set production quotas and quality standards. Given that, it is surprising that a growing number have been voluntarily terminated in recent decades by their constituent farmers. To better understand why, we construct a novel data set on the timing of initiation and termination of marketing orders active between 1974 and 2019 and estimate duration models to examine the impact of specific factors on marketing ordersÕ probability of survival. We find that the most significant factor affecting marketing order persistence is whether the order had a corresponding marketing agreement.
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September, 2024

Heterogeneity in US Farmers’ Preferences for Carbon Payments

By: Kolady, Deepthi; Thapaliya, Pramisha; Dumre, Amrit; Motallebi, Marzieh; Alhassan, Mustapha; Van der Sluis, Evert
This study uses choice experiment data to explore the role of program attributes and farmer characteristics in explaining differences in farmers’ behavior toward carbon payment programs. Results show that most farmers in the study prefer the status quo over carbon payment programs for switching to carbon-sequestering conservation practices. Farmers have negative preferences toward contract length and positive preferences toward government or not-for-profit organizations as governing entities. Besides program attributes, farmers’ climate consciousness and adverse weather experiences influence their choices and willingness to accept carbon payments. The results suggest the potential for targeting carbon payments to specific groups of farmers.
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