The United States is the country of immigrants, with 20% of the world’s international migrants. The 43 million foreign-born U.S. residents in 2014 represent almost one-seventh of the 320 million Americans. In agriculture, 70% of hired workers are immigrants. The United States has a stable and increasingly settled population of 11 million unauthorized foreigners, accounting for perhaps half of the unauthorized foreigners in industrial countries.
{"title":"Trump, Immigration, and Agriculture","authors":"Philip Martin","doi":"10.22004/ag.econ.256578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.256578","url":null,"abstract":"The United States is the country of immigrants, with 20% of the world’s international migrants. The 43 million foreign-born U.S. residents in 2014 represent almost one-seventh of the 320 million Americans. In agriculture, 70% of hired workers are immigrants. The United States has a stable and increasingly settled population of 11 million unauthorized foreigners, accounting for perhaps half of the unauthorized foreigners in industrial countries.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114491866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A sharp build-up of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) levels in the atmosphere has coincided with a general change in the earth’s ecosystem that is characterized by an increase in global average temperatures. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), average temperatures have risen 1.5°F over the past century and are projected to rise to 0.5°F to 8.6°F over the next one-hundred years (EPA, 2016a). Increasing temperatures have been accompanied by rising sea levels, flooding, extreme heat waves, drought, and frequent and intense storms.
{"title":"Alternative Policies to Address Emissions in U.S. Dairy Farming","authors":"E. Njuki, B. Bravo‐Ureta","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.251832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.251832","url":null,"abstract":"A sharp build-up of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) levels in the atmosphere has coincided with a general change in the earth’s ecosystem that is characterized by an increase in global average temperatures. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), average temperatures have risen 1.5°F over the past century and are projected to rise to 0.5°F to 8.6°F over the next one-hundred years (EPA, 2016a). Increasing temperatures have been accompanied by rising sea levels, flooding, extreme heat waves, drought, and frequent and intense storms.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132336173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Auburn, Denis Ebodaghe, Desiree K. Rucker-Ross, W. R. Dean
Since the 2011 Choices theme on beginning farmers and ranchers (Thilmany McFadden and Sureshwaran, 2011), both societal interest and government support for new farmers and ranchers have grown considerably. Many agencies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) including the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) increased their emphasis on new farmers as a result of the 2014 Agriculture Act, or “farm bill” (Williamson, 2014), and the USDA has integrated information and support from across the Department in a coordinated effort that includes a comprehensive web resource encouraging new farmers to use the full range of USDA programs, whether specifically targeted at beginners or not (USDA, 2016). Most USDA programs consider a new or beginning farmer to be someone who has been operating a farm or ranch less than ten years, or someone who aspires to enter farming or ranching.
自2011年关于新农民和牧场主的选择主题(Thilmany McFadden and Sureshwaran, 2011)以来,社会对新农民和牧场主的兴趣和政府支持都有了显著增长。由于2014年农业法案或“农业法案”(Williamson, 2014),美国农业部(USDA)内的许多机构,包括国家食品和农业研究所(NIFA),都增加了对新农民的重视,美国农业部已经整合了整个部门的信息和支持,包括一个全面的网络资源,鼓励新农民使用美国农业部的全部项目。无论是否专门针对初学者(USDA, 2016)。美国农业部的大多数项目认为,新农民或初级农民是经营农场或牧场不到十年的人,或者是渴望进入农业或牧场的人。
{"title":"Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program – Accomplishments in the Making","authors":"J. Auburn, Denis Ebodaghe, Desiree K. Rucker-Ross, W. R. Dean","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.246156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.246156","url":null,"abstract":"Since the 2011 Choices theme on beginning farmers and ranchers (Thilmany McFadden and Sureshwaran, 2011), both societal interest and government support for new farmers and ranchers have grown considerably. Many agencies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) including the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) increased their emphasis on new farmers as a result of the 2014 Agriculture Act, or “farm bill” (Williamson, 2014), and the USDA has integrated information and support from across the Department in a coordinated effort that includes a comprehensive web resource encouraging new farmers to use the full range of USDA programs, whether specifically targeted at beginners or not (USDA, 2016). Most USDA programs consider a new or beginning farmer to be someone who has been operating a farm or ranch less than ten years, or someone who aspires to enter farming or ranching.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126224286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Water already has scarcity value in many watersheds. Seventeen countries currently withdraw more than half of their available renewable water supply (FAO, 2016). Continued population and GDP growth will only increase future water demand and raise the scarcity value of water. Managing water more efficiently is already a pressing issue in semi-arid regions and will be ever more important in the future. Climate change is likely to make this problem worse. Higher future temperatures will increase evaporation lowering water supply and also increase the demand for water for irrigation, cooling, and other uses (IPCC, 2014). If society fails to adapt to this challenge, some analysts argue that there will be large damages from future water scarcity (Titus, 1992).
{"title":"Adaptation, Climate Change, Agriculture, and Water","authors":"R. Mendelsohn","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.241165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.241165","url":null,"abstract":"Water already has scarcity value in many watersheds. Seventeen countries currently withdraw more than half of their available renewable water supply (FAO, 2016). Continued population and GDP growth will only increase future water demand and raise the scarcity value of water. Managing water more efficiently is already a pressing issue in semi-arid regions and will be ever more important in the future. Climate change is likely to make this problem worse. Higher future temperatures will increase evaporation lowering water supply and also increase the demand for water for irrigation, cooling, and other uses (IPCC, 2014). If society fails to adapt to this challenge, some analysts argue that there will be large damages from future water scarcity (Titus, 1992).","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132942739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dealing with Water Scarcity: Need for Economy-Wide Considerations and Institutions","authors":"A. Dinar","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.240702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.240702","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122633039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Value-added agriculture is an important strategy to both agricultural entrepreneurship and rural development (Coltrain, Barton and Boland, 2000; Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001; Womach, 2005). Several federal and state programs support entrepreneurs’ and communities’ value-added agriculture efforts (Amanor-Boadu, 2007; Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001). However, current definitions of value-added agriculture lack a framework establishing economic linkages between consumers’ preferences and farm practices. Thus, policies and grant programs targeting value-added agriculture may be ineffective in assessing consumers’ propensity to spend, farmers’ goals and assets, and community development strategies. Similarly, farmers may be chasing fads mismatched to their resources and advantages.
农业增值是农业创业和农村发展的重要战略(Coltrain, Barton and Boland, 2000;Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001;Womach, 2005)。一些联邦和州计划支持企业家和社区的增值农业努力(Amanor-Boadu, 2007;Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001)。然而,目前增值农业的定义缺乏建立消费者偏好与农业实践之间经济联系的框架。因此,针对增值农业的政策和补助计划在评估消费者的消费倾向、农民的目标和资产以及社区发展战略方面可能是无效的。同样,农民可能在追逐与他们的资源和优势不匹配的时尚。
{"title":"What Do We Mean by Value-added Agriculture?","authors":"R. Lu, R. Dudensing","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.229438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.229438","url":null,"abstract":"Value-added agriculture is an important strategy to both agricultural entrepreneurship and rural development (Coltrain, Barton and Boland, 2000; Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001; Womach, 2005). Several federal and state programs support entrepreneurs’ and communities’ value-added agriculture efforts (Amanor-Boadu, 2007; Kilkenny and Schluter, 2001). However, current definitions of value-added agriculture lack a framework establishing economic linkages between consumers’ preferences and farm practices. Thus, policies and grant programs targeting value-added agriculture may be ineffective in assessing consumers’ propensity to spend, farmers’ goals and assets, and community development strategies. Similarly, farmers may be chasing fads mismatched to their resources and advantages.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114620611","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
It is a paradox of the modern world that while humans have unprecedented access to food—a fact to which our waistlines will testify—much of society simmers with discontents. Jimmy Kimmel recently quipped that some are more scared of gluten than disease. An organic food advocate has likened our use of pesticides to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons (Rodale, 2013), and France feels the declining carbon content of soils are threatening our climate (Climate Action, 2015). There is something of a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in terms of food. Now that obtaining calories is possible for most we are holding food to higher standards. It should not only meet our physical needs, but also our nobler goals of environmental protection, sustainability, kindness to animals, and social justice. There is no one term encompassing these higher goals, but the term that comes closest is ‘Food Democracy’. To understand food in the modern world we must understand Food Democracy. The movement may seem to lack a unifying theme, but that is mistaken. At the core of its criticisms is a resentment of the role that large corporations play in food.
{"title":"Understanding the Food Democracy Movement","authors":"F. Norwood","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.212510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.212510","url":null,"abstract":"It is a paradox of the modern world that while humans have unprecedented access to food—a fact to which our waistlines will testify—much of society simmers with discontents. Jimmy Kimmel recently quipped that some are more scared of gluten than disease. An organic food advocate has likened our use of pesticides to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons (Rodale, 2013), and France feels the declining carbon content of soils are threatening our climate (Climate Action, 2015). There is something of a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in terms of food. Now that obtaining calories is possible for most we are holding food to higher standards. It should not only meet our physical needs, but also our nobler goals of environmental protection, sustainability, kindness to animals, and social justice. There is no one term encompassing these higher goals, but the term that comes closest is ‘Food Democracy’. To understand food in the modern world we must understand Food Democracy. The movement may seem to lack a unifying theme, but that is mistaken. At the core of its criticisms is a resentment of the role that large corporations play in food.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128627795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As every self-respecting economics major knows by the time he graduates, whether a country benefits from international trade depends in theory on whether that country specializes in its comparative advantage—for example, whether it can specialize in the production of goods or services for which it has a lower opportunity cost. The production of agricultural goods being the comparative advantage of most developing countries, it follows—again, in theory—that those countries should specialize in agriculture.
{"title":"Contract Farming: What’s In It for Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries?","authors":"Marc F. Bellemare","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.208719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.208719","url":null,"abstract":"As every self-respecting economics major knows by the time he graduates, whether a country benefits from international trade depends in theory on whether that country specializes in its comparative advantage—for example, whether it can specialize in the production of goods or services for which it has a lower opportunity cost. The production of agricultural goods being the comparative advantage of most developing countries, it follows—again, in theory—that those countries should specialize in agriculture.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"124 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123056147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Contracts are widely used to govern the production and marketing of agricultural commodities. They can be an es sential tool for managing risks; contracts provide incentives for farmers to invest in specialized equipment and skills and to produce products with desirable attributes; and they can allow processors to realize economies of scale and throughput in production, thus realizing lower costs. These are all offered as attributes of contracts when compared to one alternative, a spot market. Compared to another alternative—vertical integration—contract production retains greater profit incentives for grower effort, on-farm diversi fication, and the use of localized knowledge. Measuring Contract Production in Agriculture The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultur al Resource Management Survey (ARMS), is a widely used source of data on contracts. The ARMS, which is jointly administered by the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), is a comprehensive multi-purpose annual survey of farms. It features a large sample, selected anew each year, designed to be representative of all farms in the 48 contiguous states. The multi-purpose nature of the ARMS affects the way contract agriculture data are collected. ERS reports summary statistics on contracting on the agency website and in a series of reports (MacDonald and Korb, 2011). Contract production complicates data collection of farm finances. Contract growers often bear only part of production expenses, while contractors may reimburse growers for some expenses and may provide growers with some inputs. Similarly, contract growers may own fewer assets, per dollar of production, because contractors own some of the assets. Contract growers may receive only part of the market value of a commodity in fees, with contractors receiving the rest. Contract growers may also produce specialty varieties of commodities, with different revenue and expense profiles. For all of those reasons, the survey questionnaire breaks out contract production. See Box for more information on how the ARMS collects information on agricultural contracts.
{"title":"Trends in Agricultural Contracts","authors":"J. Macdonald","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.207886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.207886","url":null,"abstract":"Contracts are widely used to govern the production and marketing of agricultural commodities. They can be an es sential tool for managing risks; contracts provide incentives for farmers to invest in specialized equipment and skills and to produce products with desirable attributes; and they can allow processors to realize economies of scale and throughput in production, thus realizing lower costs. These are all offered as attributes of contracts when compared to one alternative, a spot market. Compared to another alternative—vertical integration—contract production retains greater profit incentives for grower effort, on-farm diversi fication, and the use of localized knowledge. Measuring Contract Production in Agriculture The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultur al Resource Management Survey (ARMS), is a widely used source of data on contracts. The ARMS, which is jointly administered by the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), is a comprehensive multi-purpose annual survey of farms. It features a large sample, selected anew each year, designed to be representative of all farms in the 48 contiguous states. The multi-purpose nature of the ARMS affects the way contract agriculture data are collected. ERS reports summary statistics on contracting on the agency website and in a series of reports (MacDonald and Korb, 2011). Contract production complicates data collection of farm finances. Contract growers often bear only part of production expenses, while contractors may reimburse growers for some expenses and may provide growers with some inputs. Similarly, contract growers may own fewer assets, per dollar of production, because contractors own some of the assets. Contract growers may receive only part of the market value of a commodity in fees, with contractors receiving the rest. Contract growers may also produce specialty varieties of commodities, with different revenue and expense profiles. For all of those reasons, the survey questionnaire breaks out contract production. See Box for more information on how the ARMS collects information on agricultural contracts.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122353395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Since 2000, Russia has become increasingly important for world agriculture. The country, along with Ukraine, has emerged as a major grain exporter, while Russia has also become a large agricultural and food importer, especially of meat and other livestock products. However, the geopolitical events of 2014 involving the country’s relationship with Ukraine and the West, and even more so the economic crisis that hit late in the year, are disrupting its agricultural and food economy.
{"title":"Russia's Economic Crisis and its Agricultural and Food Economy","authors":"W. Liefert, O. Liefert","doi":"10.22004/AG.ECON.200161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22004/AG.ECON.200161","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2000, Russia has become increasingly important for world agriculture. The country, along with Ukraine, has emerged as a major grain exporter, while Russia has also become a large agricultural and food importer, especially of meat and other livestock products. However, the geopolitical events of 2014 involving the country’s relationship with Ukraine and the West, and even more so the economic crisis that hit late in the year, are disrupting its agricultural and food economy.","PeriodicalId":185368,"journal":{"name":"Choices. The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resources Issues","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127031919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}