Volume 50, Issue 3, September 2025

September, 2025

Misclassification Error in Remote Sensing Matters: The Effect of Ethanol Plants on Local Cropland Transitions

By: Pates, Nicholas J.; Hendricks, Nathan P.; Lark, Tyler J.
The quality of land cover data substantially affects estimates of treatment effects in land use change studies. We estimate the local impact of US ethanol plant expansions on cropland retention and conversion. Due to misclassification error, we show that using raw data from the Cropland Data Layer gives mixed results or results counter to economic expectations, while a cleaned version gives consistent and intuitive results. Our findings also highlight the importance of other methodological choices. Our preferred specification shows that plant expansions increase the probability of cropland conversion by 1.5 percentage points and cropland retention by 0.1 percentage points in plant neighborhoods.
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September, 2025

Seeding Rate Responses to Markets, Resources, and Technologies

By: Che, Yuyuan; Hennessy, David A.; Feng, Hongli
Corn and soybean seeding rates in the United States have diverged. We develop a theoretical model of seeding rate choices considering a resource budget trade-off between seeds and resources per seed. Using extensive farm-level data, we find soybean rates are more own-price elastic than corn. Soybean rates would decrease by 1.7% more than corn, with a 1% increase in seed-to-crop price ratio. More land-embodied inputs increase both rates, while more seed-embodied inputs increase corn rates but decrease soybean rates. The difference in price elasticities due to plant architecture has implications for both economic surplus division from innovations and ecological policy outcomes.
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September, 2025

Adopting Rotational Grazing and Cover Crops: Drivers and Complementarities

By: Wongpiyabovorn, Oranuch; Wang, Tong
Both rotational grazing (RG) and cover crop (CC) grazing extend the grazing period while requiring additional investment in fencing and water systems. Using a 2023 farmer survey in South Dakota, we found that 33.9% and 9.3% of respondents had adopted RG and CC grazing only, respectively, while 37.2% had adopted both practices. Our regression results further highlight the complementary relationship between RG and CC grazing, which indicates the potential to expedite CC adoption through financially incentivizing RG implementation. Additionally, integrated crop and livestock enterprises with a more balanced share of grassland and cropland acreage could be a target group for promoting CC adoption.
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September, 2025

The Role of Spatially Varying Descriptive Norm Nudges on Public Valuation of Ecosystem Services Associated with Improved Soil Health

By: Mavroutsikos, Charalampos; Schoengold, Karina; Yiannaka, Amalia; Banerjee, Simanti; Giannakas, Konstantinos; Awada, Tala
This study examines public values for ecosystem services (ES) associated with soil health in agricultural lands. We use a choice experiment of Nebraska residents to investigate the effect of descriptive norm nudging on willingness-to-pay (WTP) for ES. Empirical results show an overall positive WTP for ES-generating policies but significant differences across treatment groups. Results show a higher WTP for a social norm nudge that refers to a relatively large geographic area (state versus county). Results also show that total WTP for state households would pay for conservation practice incentives on less than 10% of cropland.
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September, 2025

H-2A Wages and Livestock Farm Labor Demand

By: Holtkamp, Audrey; Orazem, Peter F.
This study examines how livestock farm labor demand responds to local wages for native workers and the adverse effect wage rate paid to foreign workers with an H-2A visa. Livestock producers’ demand for domestic labor is elastic, but the demand for H-2A workers is more elastic. This implies that equiproportional increases in all wages will shift relative demand toward domestically sourced—but possibly undocumented—labor. Our analysis also shows that capital and labor are complementary inputs in livestock production, meaning that the use of hired labor increases as farms invest more in capital.
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September, 2025

Procurement Strategies to Improve and Assure Higher Quality Soybeans

By: Bullock, David W.; Wilson, William W.
This study compares purchasing strategies for meeting essential amino acid (EAA) requirements for soybeans in the Pacific Northwest export market. The analysis shows that specifying minimum EAA requirements in purchase contracts is the most reliable and cost-effective strategy and instills a sense of security and trust in meeting high-quality EAA end-user requirements. Additionally, purchasing based on minimum protein and oil specifications meets EAA requirements about 80% of the time, with the odds increasing to 93% when targeting origins based on soybean quality survey reports, albeit with added testing costs.
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September, 2025

The Effect of a Cooperative Grain Alliance on Wheat Basis

By: Beeler, Ashley; Lambert, Dayton M.; Kenkel, Phil; Brorsen, B. Wade
This study estimates the impact of joining a cooperative grain alliance on the wheat basis for elevators in Oklahoma. The study uses augmented difference-in-differences regressions to analyze the effects of joining the alliance on an elevatorÕs grain basis. Entry is not randomly assigned across elevators, and an elevatorÕs basis is codetermined with its neighboring elevators due to transport costs and other unobserved variables. Instrumental variable regression is used to address these issues. The main takeaway is that joining the alliance did not change the wheat basis.
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September, 2025

Conceptualization of How Adopting Novel Technology Induces Structural and Behavioral Changes on Farms

By: Martinsson, Elin; Storm, Hugo
Predicting the effects of technology adoption, particularly smart farming, is challenging as farmers often alter their behavior and farms once using a new technology. We derive incentives for structural and behavioral change triggered by technology adoption by considering features of smart farming technology and economic theory. As a result, we contribute a conceptual framework describing processes of change linked to technology features. Specifically, we focus on rebound effects, economies of size and scope, and risk balancing. To provide examples of how our framework applies, we conduct a literature review of previous research studying farm-level effects of smart farming.
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September, 2025

Are Milking Management Technologies Increasing the Labor Efficiency, Productivity and Profitability of Pasture-Based Dairy Farms? Evidence from Ireland

By: Palma-Molina, Paula; Hennessy, Thia; Dillon, Emma; Shalloo, Laurence; Onakuse, Stephen
Pasture-based dairy farmers currently face increasing seasonal workload in addition to declining workforce availability. Milking management technologies have the potential to improve labor efficiency with a consequent increase in productivity and profitability. However, there is a lack of evidence of the effects of these technologies on dairy farm performance. Using farm-level data from Ireland and a propensity score matching approach, we found that milking management technologies did not significantly impact labor efficiency. However, we did find a positive impact on milk yield and milk solids, which translated into increased gross output and in turn gross margin per hectare.
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September, 2025

Regional Spillovers in Wheat Variety Selection: Kansas Wheat Breeding and Variety Adoption

By: Barkley, Andrew
A wheat variety adoption model is developed to include neighboring Kansas Crop Reporting District (CRD) variety adoption decisions and yields. The model is estimated with wheat variety data from nine CRDs between 1974 and 2023. The regional spillovers provide more observations and greater information to producers about the potential performance and adaptability of the wheat varieties available for adoption. Regional spillovers have a strong statistical association with Kansas wheat variety adoption decisions. Policies and programs that promote variety trial locations in diverse growing conditions could provide additional useful information to wheat producers, who benefit from faster adoption of new higher-yielding varieties.
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