Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: A, page: 3062. Adviser: Randall E. Westgren. Includes bibliographical references. Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Magister Scientiae)--Universidade Federal de Viçosa. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 325-337).

Thesis--Iowa State University. / Bibliography: leaves 280-283.

abstract: Celiac Disease (CD) is now widespread as one in 133 people are currently diagnosed, while there were only one in 150 in 2006. Much of the research concerning CD is still in the early stages, as formal epidemiological studies are relatively recent. CD is aggravated by the consumption of gluten, which is found mainly in wheat, rye, oats, and barley. Not surprisingly, the rising prevalence of CD has created a significant business opportunity for food manufacturers in developing products that are tailored to CD sufferers. While the entire Gluten-Free (GF) industry has been experiencing double digit growth rates, the expansion in available snack foods has outstripped all others. Observation of GF snack food prices suggests that food manufacturers are responding to high retail prices associated with GF foods. However, GF foods are often also advertised with other attributes that generally sell for a premium over conventional foods. Therefore, whether the high retail price for GF snack foods can be attributed specifically to the GF attribute is an empirical question. The objective of this research is to determine whether there is a retail-price premium for GF snack foods and, if there is, to estimate its magnitude. A hedonic pricing model is used to answer this question. Specifically, a hedonic pricing model was applied to a unique dataset of snack food products in order to estimate the marginal value for the GF attribute, while controlling for a number of other important attributes. Results show that the GF attribute is both economically and statistically significant, implying a premium of nearly $1.86 above gluten-containing products. Production costs for smaller manufacturers can be two to three times higher for GF foods relative to non-GF foods, but this still implies an excess premium of over $0.50 (assuming 40% margins). However, high premiums may not last as large retailers are utilizing their influence over suppliers to keep retail margins low. Therefore, the primary implication of the research is that the rapid growth in recent years can easily be explained on economic grounds for large agribusinesses, as this implies a major profit opportunity. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Agribusiness 2010

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Glynn Tonsor / Stocker cattle economic research is very limited in scope. A focus of this research is to deepen our understanding of how cattle price and animal performance variability is viewed and approached by stocker cattle producers in the United States. Another part of this research focuses on what characteristics may be drivers of whether producers choose to practice different risk management strategies. To analyze how cattle price and animal performance variability is viewed and approached by stocker cattle producers, a stated preference valuation method was used to find willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates. Two different approaches were used to provide outcome probability information where one approach had probabilities for expected ADG change across scenarios and ADG ranges were held constant (Treatment Group A) and the second approach had ADG ranges change across scenarios and the probabilities were held constant (Treatment B). The results of our study suggest that survey respondents process scenarios differently when presented in formats Treatment Group A versus Treatment Group B. The underlying reason for this is beyond identification in this study as respondent certainty and comfort as assessed in follow-up questions was similar across the treatments. Results indicate that producers value buying cattle versus opting out of purchasing cattle and they value higher performing cattle; however, each additional pound is not valued the same. To determine the characteristics of producers and their operations that use different risk management practices, we estimated multiple probit models with the dependent variables being use of the different risk management practices. Results from the probit models suggest how producers source cattle for their operation, whether it is the region or the different markets they source from, are key determinants on whether producers practice different management strategies for market and price risk. The results suggest the model were not a good fit. Of the 30 explanatory variables included in the model, on average five explanatory variables were significant throughout the seven different dependent variables. This could be attributed to factors our study does not explicitly observe; therefore it remains a knowledge gap for the industry.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / This study focuses on the productivity and on-farm efficiency impacts of adopting biotechnology enhanced soybeans (BES). Previous research suggests the adoption of BES and subsequent time savings resulted in labor allocation to off-farm employment and reduced on-farm efficiency. Using continuous panel data for 129 farms enrolled in the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA) with production and financial crop records from 1993 through 2011 that also provided information on their BES adoption experience, this study provides estimates on the technical efficiency, cost efficiency, and Malmquist productivity indexes (MI) with decompositions into efficiency change (EC) and technical change (TC) to provide insights on the impacts of adopting BES for set of sample farms. Using data envelopment analysis to construct nonparametric efficiency frontiers and measurements assuming constant returns-to-scale (CRS) and variable returns-to-scale (VRS) technologies for the farms, this study provides insights on the impact of yield impacts of BES adoption. A biennial Malmquist productivity index (BMI) is developed to consider estimation of the productivity impacts between BES adopters and non-adopters assuming VRS. This analysis used five input categories: Labor, general, direct inputs, maintenance, and energy; and five outputs: corn, soybeans, sorghum, wheat, and other crops. Tobit regression analysis of the panel of Kansas farms provided evidence of a positive impact from adoption of biotechnology enhanced soybeans on on-farm technical efficiency. Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit distributional hypothesis tests showed significant differences between analyzing the farms under CRS and VRS assumptions. T-tests showed a bias existed when assuming CRS if the true underlying technology was VRS in productivity analysis. However, there was not a strong statistically significant difference between the distributions of productivity measures from the underlying populations of BES adopters and non-adopters in the sample of Kansas farms. A revenue-indirect cost efficiency analysis of the sample farms demonstrated that different conclusions were reached under CRS and VRS when considering the differences in the average of the means of estimated efficiency scores and Tobit regression results considering BES adoption. Assuming CRS resulted in positive marginal effects for adopting BES of 0.017 significant at the 5% level. The marginal effect of BES adoption was not statistically significant under VRS.

The Grand Banks commercial fishing industry has been faced with several crises in the past decades. These crises have included the major financial crunch and inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as the resources collapse of the Northern cod stock and other groundfish stocks in the 1990s followed by the foreign fishing disputes of the mid 1990s. The thesis examines the evolution of the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada during these critical years with focus on the fisheries of the Grand Banks. A linear programming model of the configuration of the Grand Banks commercial fishing fleet is formulated to describe the post 2000 period. The model is driven using the results of an extensive analysis of historical records for this recent period. The model results are validated by comparing them with historical average annual data over the period 2000-2005. The linear programming model is run under several scenarios emulating changes in government policy and economic conditions affecting the harvesting sector. Based on the results, alternative fishing fleet configurations for the Grand Banks fishery are defined to improve the economic viability of the fishing fleet. The model pointed to changes in fleet configuration including a rationalization of the shrimp and crab fleets and a shift to longline vessels with higher-valued product for groundfish harvesting. Once implemented, these suggestions would advance the goals of the new "Oceans to Plate" approach to fisheries management recently announced by Fisheries and Oceans, Canada.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffrey M. Peterson / Understanding irrigation water demand is vital to policy decisions concerning water scarcity. This thesis evaluates irrigation water-use responses to changes in prices, while accounting for cross-sectional characteristics of irrigators’ resource settings. An irrigator’s profit-maximizing decision is modeled in two stages. In the first stage, he decides which crop to plant, and in the second stage he decides how much water to apply given the crop choice. This thesis employs an econometric modeling technique not previously used in the irrigation water demand literature, a multinomial logit selectivity model. This econometric technique allows the intensive (change in water use for each crop in the short run) and extensive (change in water use in the long run due to changes in crop-choice) margin effects to be computed in a simultaneous equation system. A multinomial logit selectivity model has applications to many resource issues in production agriculture where the two-stage decision process is common. The model is estimated from field-level data on water use and crop-choice for a 25-county region in western Kansas over the period 1991-2004. Water use was found to be highly inelastic to the price of natural gas, but becomes more elastic as the price increases. The intensive margin effect was significant for natural gas price. The extensive margin effect only comprised half the total effect under high natural gas prices and was negligible for low prices. However, the extensive margin effect under high natural gas prices declined over time due to more efficient irrigation systems and improved crop varieties. The intensive margin effect explained most of the water use response from changes in other variables, including corn price. An increase in corn price has a negligible extensive margin effect because corn is most often substituted with alfalfa, which has a similar water requirement. Inelastic demand implies that policies aiming to conserve the Ogallala Aquifer by increasing the price of water will not accomplish their purpose and will affect irrigators’ incomes. More effective policies would be voluntary or mandatory quantity restrictions. However, efficient restrictions would need to account for spatial variation in the rate of depletion and the remaining saturated thickness.

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Hikaru H. Peterson / The geographic distribution and structure of the U.S. dairy industry have changed considerably during the last 30 years with larger herds representing an increasing proportion of the nation’s overall dairy cow inventory and producing a greater share of the milk. Geographically, the migration of dairies from traditional production regions to states formerly unfamiliar with dairy production has transpired with the greatest increases in Federal Milk Marketing Order marketings occurring in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and Southwest Kansas since the 1980’s. This study seeks to define the factors influencing the dairy location decision applying spatial econometric techniques. To examine the effects of county-specific demographic, environmental, and market factors as well as to test for the influence of spatial agglomeration economies on the geographic distribution of the U.S. dairy industry, a spatially explicit, county-level model of the dairy production sector was developed. Quantities of milk marketed through the Federal Milk Marketing Order during the month of May for counties in 45 states during 1997 and 2002 were specified as a function of natural endowments, business climate, production resource availability, milk price, and market access. The model was estimated according to spatial autoregressive (spatially lagged dependent variable) and spatial Durbin (lagged dependent and independent variables) specifications accounting for the censored nature of the dependent variable and heteroskedastic errors. Based on RMSE, the spatial error model was selected to make out of sample predictions for 2004. The change in milk marketings between 1997 and 2002 was regressed on the 1997 independent variables using non-Tobit versions of the same models with limited success. Results indicated a small but statistically significant presence of spatial agglomeration effects in the dairy industry in both 1997 and 2002 and revealed changes in the degrees of influence of several variables between the two periods examined. Population and the wages of agricultural workers became significant in 2002, while the elasticities of feed availability diminished, consistent with an increase in western-style dairy production. Interestingly, the spatial parameter decreased from 0.052 in 1997 to 0.028 in 2002 suggesting spatial agglomeration economies had a diminishing role in determining the amount of milk marketed in a county.