Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffrey M. Peterson / Technological changes have always been subject to numerous debates and studies to establish if and how much they benefit society. Glyphosate resistant soybean can be seen as such a technological improvement that has generated numerous studies attempting to measure the welfare gains. There are obvious gains from adopting the technology from a production efficiency standpoint, as it significantly decreases production cost and simplifies weed control management. However, with some consumers being reluctant to embrace such a change, especially in Europe, it is not obvious that overall welfare gains are positive. This study attempts to address some shortcomings perceived in recent economic literature, namely the disregard of consumers’ demand responses and the lack of analysis over time. A partial equilibrium model is created where supply and demand functions are estimated based on observed prices and quantities, the adoption rate of the new technology, and production information such as yield and harvested areas. The model developed considers 6 different regions, namely the U.S., Europe, China, Argentina, Brazil and the rest of the world, and develops for each one of them a supply function and three demand functions for soybean grain, meal and oil. Once those are calibrated, the gains for the different players in the industry are computed. The findings are that the gains are proportionally allocated to the different consumers based on the share of the demand for the specific country. Price supports in the U.S. in the early years provide, proportionally to the adoption rate, more gains to the consumers. Producers gain or lose from the technology depending on whether they have adopted it or not. Countries like the U.S. or Argentina, who were the earlier adopters, definitely see an increase in their producer surplus from the adoption of the technology. Countries such as Brazil, which have delayed adopting the technology for political reasons, have faced a significant loss due to lower prices without the benefits of enjoying a cost-saving production technology. The innovator’s gain increases over time as the adoption rate rises. From a country perspective, the U.S. is without doubt the country that has benefited the most from the technology. The main reasons are that the U.S. has the largest acreage of soybean that is grown using the Glyphosate resistant technology. The U.S. consumer base for soybean products is the largest and the monopoly is a U.S.-based company. Therefore some of the gain captured abroad by the monopoly funnels into the U.S. This study finds that, from 2002 to 2005, even if the European consumer completely stopped purchasing soybean, the U.S. as a whole would still benefit from the technology. For the earlier period 1998-2005, the study finds that if Europe had decreased its demand from 35% to 48%, there would have been a possibility for the U.S. as a whole to have been made worse off by the technology.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Michael R. Langemeier / The objective of this thesis is to examine differences in labor efficiency and to find what is driving those differences among Kansas farms. The results provide a quantified understanding of the variation in labor productivity and labor efficiency relating to three categories of variables: farm characteristics, financial performance, and specialization. This research uses regression estimates from a data set of 1,145 Kansas farms to quantify how farm characteristics are related to labor productivity and labor efficiency. There are two main models. Labor productivity, expressed as value of farm production divided by the number of workers, is regressed on three categories of variables: farm characteristics, financial performance, and specialization. Labor efficiency, expressed as labor costs divided by value of farm production, is also regressed on the same categories of variables. The research found that farm size, managerial ability, and age were the most influential and significant variables in the labor productivity model. Farm size, managerial ability, and land tenure were the most influential and significant variables in the labor efficiency model. Farm size is a variable important to both models, and when evaluated at $100,000 of VFP, labor productivity has a value of 152,122 and a labor efficiency value of 0.271 (all else constant). When evaluated at a VFP of $500,000, labor productivity and labor efficiency improve to values of 217,914 and 0.246, respectively.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / The CNH Wichita Product Center has had a chronic leak problem with the Skid Steer Loaders. The objective of this project was to analyze the manufacturing plant leak data and make improvements to correct the issue. The objective is twofold: 1) to make process or design improvements on current products produced in the plant and 2) to make recommendations for future designs to prevent such leak issues from reoccurring. The manufacturing data had to be transformed into usable form and then it was analyzed mostly by utilizing Pareto Charts. The highest six problem leak points were chosen from the manufacturing data. Process changes were implemented on these particular leak joints and the results were analyzed using two proportions hypothesis tests. The process changes reduced the leak rate by an average percent reduction of 86 percent. The process changes implemented will also be applied to other similar joints, and results documented in the future. The future design recommendations made from the analyzed data included the increased use of o-ring face seal connections at certain locations and where possible, reducing the number of joints per machine.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / Risk management decision makers face significant price risk when purchasing or selling wholesale beef. Previous research has identified cross-hedging wholesale beef in Live Cattle futures as a plausible means of reducing this risk. Changes in the way beef is marketed have led to poor performance of cross-hedging programs. Unlike earlier research, more recent studies have shown that Live Cattle futures are a poor venue for effective cross-hedging. This study replicates previous research to evaluate the current state of traditional cross-hedging performance. Focus then shifts to improving cross-hedging methods. Hedge ratios derived from a traditional cross-hedging methodology exhibit a great deal of sensitivity to season, estimation technique, and quality grade. Basis risk is abundant for this type of cross-hedging. To reduce the basis risk inherent with cross-hedging wholesale beef, bundling is proposed. This involves combining two or more cuts together in a single unit to be cross-hedged. Firms merchandising meat from a whole carcass would be able to provide a valuable risk management service if the basis risk faced when hedging a bundled product is less than the basis risk faced when cross-hedging the corresponding products independently. This research found that bundling has neither a positive or negative effect on basis risk. Therefore bundling is a plausible practice, but will not offer reduced basis risk to decision makers.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / The prevalence of obesity and overweight has heightened over the last 40 years. Over two thirds of the US adult population is overweight or obese. Further, 18% of adolescents, ages 12 to 19, are obese, which is an increase of over 13% since the late 1970’s. Food environment and peer influence have been emerging areas of study and are thought to be catalysts to unhealthy eating choices. College students present a unique opportunity to look at the impact of a changing food environment, including changes in peer groups. This study is concerned with how students’ peers impact their food consumption and ultimately weight. College freshmen were recruited during their first month on campus at Kansas State University. The students participated in a year-long, three-part study to track their eating habits, weight and height. The students’ parents were also asked to participate by filling out a survey on eating habits. The students also asked one friend they ate with at least once a week to fill out a food record with them. The collected information was transformed into daily average calories for each of six food groups and for macronutrients. A peer ratio was created from the parents and friends calorie intakes to determine the similarity in consumption by each food group or macronutrient. A system of equations was specified and estimated for both food groups and macronutrients. For the food group model, beverages were the only food group with a statistically significant peer ratio term. The coefficient on the ratio was positive, indicating that students would consume more calories from beverages, as their college friends consumed more calories from beverages relative to the students’ parents at home. In the macronutrient model, protein had a statistically significant and positive peer ratio. An examination of the impacts of predicted calories consumed from food groups, along with other individual characteristics, on student’s BMI in the spring term, indicated that increasing snack consumption led to an increase in BMI while increasing bread consumption caused a decrease. Eating more meals at the university dining center also increased BMI. An analysis for the predicted macronutrient values revealed a similar relationship with eating more meals at the dining center, but the predicted macronutrients did not have statistically significant impacts on BMI.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / Farmer-to-consumer direct marketing institutions have expanded significantly in the last decades. In particular, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has developed exponentially in the US and in Europe. CSAs consist of a contract in which the consumer buys a share of the farm production at the beginning of the season and receive in exchange a bundle of products regularly. CSAs still account for a marginal share of food sales today and many questions remain unanswered, such as the level of knowledge of the general public about CSA, the potential size of the market, its consumer characteristics, and the main motivations and barriers that lead consumers to either join or not join CSAs. This study focused on addressing these questions for the Kansas City area and the central region in France. Another objective was to give recommendations to farmers on how to develop CSAs. Two versions of the surveys were designed and conducted in the US and in France to address the objectives. Particularly, two types of questions were used in order to elicit willingness to pay (WTP): an open-ended question and a choice experiment. A Tobit model and discrete choice models were run to analyze results from the open-ended question and the choice experiment, respectively. Results show that around 80 percent of the population knew little about CSAs. The understanding of the demand for CSAs shows that a potential market, accounting for around 25 percent of the population, exists, but consumers are very exigent and farmers need to provide well-considered contracts to attract consumers. Recommendations to farmers are presented following the 4P method. For the Product, the variety offered seems to be the most important point. For Price, it has been estimated from the demand at $300 in the US and €400 in France for a basic share. Promotion would need to focus on education. Having various delivery locations would be the best option concerning Place; home delivery was found to be unnecessary. Tendencies found in the US and in France were similar except for educational activities: the French are looking more for these opportunities than Americans who care more about convenience.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Michael Langemeier / The objectives of this thesis are to examine the labor requirements of Kansas crop and livestock enterprises and farms and the connection between labor efficiency and productivity, and other important farm characteristics including farm size and type. The derived labor requirements are compared to current KFMA labor requirements. Enterprise summary reports and a five year whole-farm panel data set from 1,016 Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) farms are used in the analysis. Whole-farm labor requirements are computed with and without an adjustment for managerial and overhead cost. Individual regressions will be estimated to determine the effects that farm size, type, region and profit margin have on labor requirements. The estimation results suggest that many of the current labor requirements still in use are accurate. However, there are enterprises with labor requirements that need updating. When the newly estimated requirements are compared to the previous KFMA requirements, 14 enterprises have lower labor requirements. Irrigated alfalfa showed the greatest decrease in labor required when compared to the previous standard, decreasing from 3.85 hrs/acre to 1.70 hrs/acre. Regression estimation results indicated that whole farm labor standards that were corrected for un-allocated overhead and managerial costs appear to be a more accurate representation of farm labor requirements.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Timothy J. Dalton / Millet and sorghum are major crops in Niger, West Africa. Improving the productivity of millet and sorghum is important to fight against poverty and malnutrition in this country. This study contributes to this objective by conducting efficiency level of millet, sorghum farmers, and the factors that influence efficiency. To reach this goal I applied a stochastic parametric frontier analysis using a cross-sectional data set collected by The Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) in 2011. I obtained 216 observations of plots that plant millet and 364 observations of plots that plant sorghum from 2011 to 2012 over the country. I employed Cobb–Douglas and Translog functional forms along with the half normal error distribution to estimate the production frontier. I also conducted a statistical test to choose the most appropriate functional form that fits the data for different crops. It was found that the mean technical efficiency of millet farmers is 38.44 percentage and sorghum farmers is 58.22 percentage. Lastly, I analyzed the correlates of technical inefficiency, I employed two-step approach. I found that the inefficiency of farmers is related to managerial factors such as education level or farming method.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Michael Langemeier / This thesis had two objectives. One objective was to compare one northeast Kansas farm's financial performance from 2002 through 2011 to various groups of farms participating in the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) during the same period. The second objective was to compare the crop acreage growth trends of the same northeast Kansas farm from 2002 through 2011 to the same groups of farms participating in the KFMA. In this thesis the northeast Kansas farm was referred to as ABC Farm. The purpose of this thesis was to provide ABC Farm's owners and management with information that could be used to formulate long-term goals for ABC Farm and to help identify strategies for achieving those goals. ABC Farm's 10-year financial performance was compared to six different KFMA member groups using 12 different financial measures or ratios. The KFMA groups included all NE region farms, NE region farms in the highest value of farm production (VFP) category, STATE irrigated crop farms, NE region farms in the highest net farm income quartile, NE region farms in the highest crop acreage category, and NE region farms in the lowest adjusted total expense ratio quartile. The 12 financial measures or ratios included VFP, net farm income, adjusted total expense ratio, operating profit margin ratio, asset turnover ratio, percent return on assets, VFP per worker, total crop acres farmed, crop machinery investment per crop acre, crop machinery cost per crop acre, current ratio, and debt to asset ratio. ABC Farm's 10-year average financial performance was better than the 10-year average of any KFMA group for most financial measures. ABC Farm's VFP, net farm income, operating profit margin ratio, VFP per worker, total crop acres, and current ratio were all higher than any KFMA group. ABC Farm's adjusted total expense ratio, crop machinery cost per crop acre, and debt to asset ratio were also lower than those of the various KFMA groups compared to. ABC Farm did not compare favorably to other KFMA groups for some of the financial measures. ABC Farm's average crop machinery investment per crop acre was higher than every group. ABC Farm's average asset turnover ratio was lower than every group. ABC Farm's average return on assets was lower than all but one group, all NE region farms.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Andrew P. Barkley / The objective of this thesis is to determine the factors that impact the location of organic food production and organic food consumption. The models used test to see if organic foods are consumed where they are produced, the characteristics of consumers which influence their organic consumption, and if organic production is located in the same areas as conventional production. The results of this study showed that organic production is not dependent on conventional production. Education was found to be positively correlated to organic production and consumption while income actually had an opposite effect. Organic production and consumption were also linked to the political liberalness of a state. It was found that urban populations had a negative impact on organic production and Whole Foods stores had a positive effect.