As the Senate continues its debate on the Farm bill, it seems that very little will change from the current US farm policies. Here is the latest from US newspapers:
New York Times In Farm Belt, Ethanol Plants Hit Resistance;
Washington Post Senate's Farm Bill Includes $10 Billion in New Aid;
Washington Times: An unworthy farm bill
November 13, 2007
In Farm Belt, Ethanol Plants Hit Resistance
By MONICA DAVEY
SPARTA, Wis. — When plans were announced for a new ethanol distillery on the outskirts of this city of 9,000, residents complained that it would mar the view from the municipal golf course. They worried that its emissions would taint the milk-based products made at nearby Century Foods International, one of the community’s biggest employers. They even argued over whether the plant would reek like burned molasses or blackened popcorn or fermenting beer.
The T-shirts opponents printed up told the story: “Good idea. Bad location.”
For years, the arrival of an ethanol distillery in agricultural America was greeted mainly with delight, a ticket to the future in places plagued by economic uncertainty. But in the nation’s middle, the engine of ethanol country, the glow is dimming.
In Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and even Iowa, the nation’s largest corn and ethanol producer, this next-generation fuel finds itself facing the oldest of hurdles: opposition from residents who love the idea of an ethanol distillery so long as it is someplace else.
“What they are trying to sell we aren’t buying,” said Deb Moore, who owns a sandwich shop and soda fountain here.
The disputes have left some proposed plants waiting, mired in lawsuits; a few have given up.
“There is a campaign of sorts that is seeking to slow and preferably to stop the growth of the ethanol industry,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group based in Washington. “We have to get through a barrage of mud pies to get our message out.”
These are not the better-known philosophical opponents to ethanol, those who question the efficiency of corn-based ethanol as an energy source, blame ethanol for rising food prices, or disagree with the federal subsidies that have long held up the industry.
These people are farmers. Or they know a farmer. Or their grandfather was a farmer and, as in so many farm families, ethanol has meant new hope for the fading towns built on corn fields. The biggest complaints are cousins of the gripes brought about by proposed paper mills, landfills, prisons and the like: an increase in noise, traffic, odor, emissions and demand on the water system.
“No, no, no, we’re not against ethanol production whatsoever,” said Lonnie Nation, who lives near New Castle, Ind., where he and others have posted signs, filed a lawsuit and were going door to door this month to stop a new plant. “But if you put it where they want to, you’re going to be squeezing all our homes between an ethanol plant and a prison. What will that do to home values?”
Some experts say the local protests reflect a new anti-ethanol mood spurred by a slow but steady drumbeat of negative attention on the industry. Across the Midwest, questions about ethanol have been raised by environmental advocates, livestock owners have complained about soaring prices for corn feed and farmers have fretted about how expensive some farmland has become.
“That wonderful aura that the ethanol plants had may be wearing off a little,” said Wallace E. Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue University.
Industry advocates play down the size of the opposition and suggest the increase in objections to new plants is simply a factor of math; 131 plants are now operating and more than 70 others are under construction, and the vast bulk of them are in the Midwest.
That is a marked increase from less than three years ago, when Congress enacted an energy law that included a national mandate for the increased use of renewable fuel in gasoline, setting off the ethanol rush. In January 2005, more than a quarter century after the commercial ethanol industry got started, just 81 plants were functioning.
“The fights are rare, and sometimes it’s just 11 people in a town of 5,000 or 6,000,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group. In Iowa, which has more ethanol distilleries than any other state, residents near Grinnell filed a lawsuit to try to stop a company from building an ethanol plant. “There are some people who would rather see their town dry up and blow away than change the status quo,” Mr. Shaw said.
The local strife coincides with what is already a moment of tumult for the ethanol industry. In recent months, an enormous supply of ethanol has glutted the market, sinking its price and sending a chill through the ethanol boom.
At least three proposed plants have halted construction recently, industry officials said, including one in Reynolds, Ind. Only two years ago, Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor, had held up the town as a symbol of the shift to renewable energy sources and nicknamed it BioTown U.S.A.
In October, the owners of at least one long-running plant — one that opened in 1983 in Grafton, N.D., and made 10.5 million gallons a year — announced it would shut down for now, thanks to market forces.
Experts debate whether the current ethanol glut is the start of the end to the rush to corn-based ethanol or merely a temporary correction as transportation lines are developed from the Midwest to bigger markets on the coasts. Either way, residents’ complaints about proposed plants have only added to the cascade of bad news for ethanol.
“It’s like the dot-com industry,” said Anne Yoder, who is pressing to stop plans for an ethanol plant outside Topeka, Kan., and describes herself “not at all” as an activist but as “an ordinary soccer mom.”
“When ethanol first came along there was so much promise,” she said. “Maybe that’s starting to trickle off.”
This spring, when Ms. Yoder first began going door to door to her neighbors to describe her worries about a proposed facility, she expected to be dismissed by the many farmers in her rural county, who presumably would benefit from having a plant nearby to sell their corn.
“But I was shocked by what I heard,” she said. “They don’t want it here either. Farmers have been in the business for hundreds of years and what they told me is that they don’t have a limitless supply of water to produce more corn anyway. This isn’t as pretty a picture as everyone wants to make it out to be.”
Ms. Yoder, who said she now spent several hours a day on this battle and has helped to gather more than 500 names on a petition, has exchanged e-mail messages with the organizers of communities in other states fighting ethanol plants.
A loose network of opponents is growing. In June, officials from Portsmouth, Va., toured three ethanol plants in Wisconsin, meeting with neighbors and noting observations about odors (“like beer but with a metal smell mixed in,” for instance, residents in Wisconsin cautioned the Virginia officials).
“We just swap information and talk about what tactics they took that worked,” Ms. Yoder said.
Still uncertain is how much these protests will affect the industry.
In Sparta, city officials were the ones who initially sought out Coulee Area Renewable Energy to consider moving here, said Michael B. Van Sicklen, a lawyer for the ethanol makers. The plans were sailing along through annexation and zoning proceedings for months, he said.
Then complaints emerged from leaders at Century Foods International, which sits not far from the proposed plant. Residents signed petitions. They demanded meetings. They filed lawsuits.
In October, the ethanol makers and Century Foods International announced they had reached a deal — one so tentative, confidential and in flux that representatives on both sides declined to talk to about it. No one on either side would say where an ethanol plant might go now, only that it would not be here, in view of the golf course.
Senate's Farm Bill Includes $10 Billion in New Aid
By Dan MorganSpecial to The Washington PostTuesday, November 13, 2007; A02
Thanks to the application of a little last-minute budgetary magic, the farm bill before the Senate this week authorizes about $10 billion in new subsidies, price guarantees and disaster aid in the next decade, even as farmers report near-record profits.
There is a new $5.1 billion "disaster trust fund," as well as a revenue insurance program that would increase taxpayer costs by $4.7 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spread through the huge bill are gains for producers of wheat, milk, sugar, peanuts, barley, oats and honey, and a new $1 million-a-year subsidy earmarked for camelina, a seed used to make biofuels.
"Pretty much everywhere you look, farm subsidies are being increased," said Daniel A. Sumner, an agricultural economist and adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
Few predicted that outcome a few months ago.
Fiscal conservatives and a broad coalition of farm program critics were primed to pare back the subsidies. President Bush, stung by a barrage of criticism after he signed a 2002 farm bill laden with billions of dollars in new subsidies, was on the side of the reformers.
Worse, from the perspective of the farm bloc, Congress's new Democratic leadership reinstituted "pay-as-you-go" budgeting, which barred new spending that increases the fiscal deficit.
"It's made it much more difficult," Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) grumbled in September. "There's very little left for a lot of things."
But in a surprising turnabout engineered by key farm-state lawmakers, the bill on the Senate floor builds strongly on the price guarantees and supports included in the controversial 2002 legislation, which authorized $73 billion more in subsidies, food stamps and other agriculture-related spending. The Senate bill is more generous than a House version that passed in July.
To Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a longtime critic of the program, this year's bill marks a "continuum" with the past rather than a change in direction.
"The farm program is agriculture's answer to 1930s socialism," he joked last week. "It's commissar policy."
One innovation would pay farmers $15 a year for each eligible acre -- whether they plant anything or not -- while guaranteeing them an additional payment if crop revenues in their state fall short of the norm.
Farmers choosing the program, which would start in 2010, would no longer be eligible for traditional farm subsidies. But budget officials predict that tens of thousands of farmers growing corn, wheat or soybeans will opt for it because traditional payments stand to be sharply reduced in coming years because of higher commodity prices.
The plan is backed by the National Corn Growers Association and is sponsored by Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Harkin.
In a Nov. 1 estimate, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that the program would reduce government costs by $2.4 billion between 2008 and Sept. 30, 2017 -- the official window for judging whether a program conforms to the pay-as-you-go budget rules.
Those savings would occur because farmers enrolling would forgo traditional federal price guarantees and direct payments during the budget window.
But the CBO said that about $11 billion in revenue-guarantee payments would be made after the 2017 cutoff date. So instead of reducing expenditures, the new program would actually cost $4.7 billion, after some delayed savings are factored in.
"Unfortunately, it's a tried-and-true gimmick because of how CBO counts," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The only change in this farm bill is they're getting more money than they got before."
Harkin himself has criticized another major new program included in the Senate version of the bill, a $5.1 billion, five-year trust fund to cover weather losses of farmers and ranchers.
The costs of the disaster program and other new farm bill initiatives would be offset in part by tightened tax rules on business. The tax changes, which would raise at least $15 billion in new revenues through 2017, were approved last month by the Senate Finance Committee and then attached to the farm bill to meet budget requirements.
The disaster fund has been a priority for Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), whose dry Western states are plagued by droughts and other natural disasters. But acting Agriculture Secretary Charles F. Conner last week blasted the Senate for "asking other sectors to bear the costs" of the farm bill.
Meanwhile, a wide range of commodity interests also stands to benefit from the Senate bill.
Sugar beet and sugar cane growers would get a new program aimed at protecting their share of the U.S. market in the face of an expected surge in Mexican imports. The 10-year cost: about $1.3 billion.
Tucked into the measure is good news for the companies that store and handle the South's peanut crop. The bill partially reinstitutes a program that was discontinued in 2006, allowing the companies to bill the government for some costs they incur under the federal price-support program. The CBO has set a $175 million, 10-year price tag on that.
According to records provided to The Washington Post by the Department of Agriculture, peanut warehousing is dominated by two large corporations that in the past received about half the federal storage payments. They are Virginia-based Birdsong and a joint venture between agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland and a Swiss partner.
The Senate version of the bill also continues a special break for peanut growers that was included in the 2002 legislation. Diversified farmers can keep collecting federal peanut subsidies even after they have reached the subsidy limit on their other farming operations.
Last week, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee, fired back at critics of farm program spending, noting that commodity programs now claim only a 14 percent share of the $288 billion Senate bill, half the share of five years ago.
"There is a significant reform just in terms of pure dollars," he said.
Budget analysts say that is due less to declining spending on farmers than to runaway growth in the food stamp program, which is also funded in the bill. The number of recipients has jumped from 19 million in 2002 to nearly 27 million, boosting 10-year cost estimates by almost $200 billion.
Morgan is a contract writer of The Washington Post and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy institution.
Article published Nov 13, 2007
Washington Times: An unworthy farm bill
November 13, 2007
Due to the ethanol boom and strong export markets, U.S. farm incomes are projected to reach a nominal record this year ($87.1 billion, up nearly 50 percent from 2006 and 70 percent higher than the 2000-03 average farm income). Meanwhile, both the Agriculture Department and the Congressional Budget Office forecast that currently robust prices for subsidized crops will continue over the next five years. Nevertheless, the five-year farm-reauthorization bill passed by the House earlier this year and the one now being debated in the Senate contain provisions that would extend for another five years the most egregious farm subsidies — direct payments — ever established. Unlike other farm subsidies, which are triggered when prices fall below support levels or Mother Nature devastates crop production, direct payments are made irrespective of the price level, current output or farm income. This year's farm bill projects making more than $26 billion in direct payments over five years.
Congress established direct payments in the historic Freedom to Farm Act of 1996. The fixed-but-declining annual direct payments, which were made regardless of market prices, were designed to wean farmers from decades of dependence upon other farm subsidies, which the 1996 act abolished. When the 2002 farm bill re-established those older subsidies, it also retained direct payments, whose only purpose was to help farmers overcome their addiction to the very commodity subsidies that were reinstated. The 2002 farm bill essentially set the stage for the Republican Party's spending orgy. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), which became famous in 2001 when it posted on its Web site a list naming every recipient of federal farm subsidies during the previous five years, has just released a major study on direct payments.
Over the next five years, under pending legislation, EWG estimates that (1) taxpayers will pay more than $10 billion to corn farmers, nearly $6 billion to wheat farmers, about $3 billion to both cotton and soybean farmers and more than $2 billion to rice farmers — regardless of their income or the price of their crop; (2) these five crops alone will command 93 percent of the $26.2 billion in direct payments; (3) the top 10 percent of direct-payment recipients will pocket 60 percent of the subsidies, and "the top 1 percent of beneficiaries (15,200 of them) will collect over $3.3 billion, or a five-year total of $220,500 apiece"; (5) "taxpayers will be sending millions of dollars to some of the largest, wealthiest farming operations in America," EWG reports, including more than 250 farm businesses that would each collect at least $1 million over the next five years — even if the price of their crop, such as corn, remained at record levels; (6) seven states will collect half the money, and the 19 states represented on the Senate Agriculture Committee will grab more than 60 percent of the taxpayer subsidies. Unless radically modified, this farm bill cries out for a presidential veto.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
International Experience and Your Career
International Experience and Your Career:
Networking Panel
Wednesday November 14, 2007 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Location: University Career Center, 3100 Hornbake
Library
About the event:
This event will begin with a panel discussion.
During the panel employers from various
organizations will discuss their international
experiences as well as how students can market their
international experience. Employers will also share
the skills their organizations value the most in
potential employees. After the panel discussion,
employers and students will move to the resources
for the networking event. During the networking
event employers will collect resumes, answer
questions and provide interested students with
information about employment opportunities.
Refreshments will be served.
Organizations in Attendance:
The organizations in attendance recruit a variety of
majors.
Organizations represented: U.S. Department of
State, REHAU, Peace Corps, Education Development
Center, and Cross Cultural Solutions.
For more information contact:
Letitia Williams
lwillia7@umd.edu
301-405-0276
Networking Panel
Wednesday November 14, 2007 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Location: University Career Center, 3100 Hornbake
Library
About the event:
This event will begin with a panel discussion.
During the panel employers from various
organizations will discuss their international
experiences as well as how students can market their
international experience. Employers will also share
the skills their organizations value the most in
potential employees. After the panel discussion,
employers and students will move to the resources
for the networking event. During the networking
event employers will collect resumes, answer
questions and provide interested students with
information about employment opportunities.
Refreshments will be served.
Organizations in Attendance:
The organizations in attendance recruit a variety of
majors.
Organizations represented: U.S. Department of
State, REHAU, Peace Corps, Education Development
Center, and Cross Cultural Solutions.
For more information contact:
Letitia Williams
lwillia7@umd.edu
301-405-0276
FT: Rising food prices to hit consumption
Intersting article about the impact of high commodity prices.
As always, click on read more to see the whole article
Rising food prices to hit consumption
ByJavier Blas, Commodities Correspondent, in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: November 7 2007 11:00 | Last updated: November 7 2007 11:00
Poor developing countries will be forced to cut food consumption and risk an increase in malnutrition after an “alarming” increase in their agricultural commodities bills, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation warned on Wednesday.
In its biannual Food Outlook report the FAO predicted that food prices, particularly cereals, would remain high in 2008 having hit record levels this year.
“Given the firmness of food prices in the international markets, the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months, leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income food-deficit countries,” the report said.
Ali Arslan Gurkan, chief of commodity markets and policy analysis at the FAO in Rome, said that subSaharan countries were most at risk and added that high food prices meant it was increasingly difficult to meet the UN goals of hunger reduction.
“We are lagging well behind our targets [of hunger reduction] and we are not likely to meet them,” Mr Gurkan said. “The outlook for food and, at the same time, crude-oil importing countries is bleak.”
The world’s food import bill will rise in 2007 to $745bn (€508bn, £354bn), up 21 per cent from last year. The cost for developing countries will increase by 25.5 per cent, to almost $233bn.
The annual food expenditure of the most vulnerable countries has more than doubled since 2000, according to FAO estimates.
Mr Gurkan said that, as a result, some countries were already reducing their food imports. Prices were rising because of strong demand from developing countries; a rising global population; more frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change; and the biofuel industry’s appetite for grains.
“Soaring grain prices are to blame, especially for wheat, but also freight costs, which have doubled since last year, putting additional pressure on countries’ ability to cover their import expenditures,” the report said.
The warning on sustained high food prices comes after Russia last month imposed price controls on food and other countries were forced to increase their food subsidies or scrap their food import tariffs.
The UN body has warned that high food prices could trigger social unrest, after episodes of strife this year in Mexico and Yemen.
Dairy products have so far registered the largest price increase, rising almost 65 per cent over the past 12 months, while grains and vegetable oil have surged almost 40 per cent. Meat prices have risen by about 6 per cent. Sugar costs, on the other hand, have declined by almost 35 per cent.
Mr Gurkan said that the food crisis had the potential of having an impact on long-term nutrition in contrast to previous episodes, which “were short lived and without lasting impact”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
As always, click on read more to see the whole article
Rising food prices to hit consumption
ByJavier Blas, Commodities Correspondent, in London
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: November 7 2007 11:00 | Last updated: November 7 2007 11:00
Poor developing countries will be forced to cut food consumption and risk an increase in malnutrition after an “alarming” increase in their agricultural commodities bills, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation warned on Wednesday.
In its biannual Food Outlook report the FAO predicted that food prices, particularly cereals, would remain high in 2008 having hit record levels this year.
“Given the firmness of food prices in the international markets, the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months, leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income food-deficit countries,” the report said.
Ali Arslan Gurkan, chief of commodity markets and policy analysis at the FAO in Rome, said that subSaharan countries were most at risk and added that high food prices meant it was increasingly difficult to meet the UN goals of hunger reduction.
“We are lagging well behind our targets [of hunger reduction] and we are not likely to meet them,” Mr Gurkan said. “The outlook for food and, at the same time, crude-oil importing countries is bleak.”
The world’s food import bill will rise in 2007 to $745bn (€508bn, £354bn), up 21 per cent from last year. The cost for developing countries will increase by 25.5 per cent, to almost $233bn.
The annual food expenditure of the most vulnerable countries has more than doubled since 2000, according to FAO estimates.
Mr Gurkan said that, as a result, some countries were already reducing their food imports. Prices were rising because of strong demand from developing countries; a rising global population; more frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change; and the biofuel industry’s appetite for grains.
“Soaring grain prices are to blame, especially for wheat, but also freight costs, which have doubled since last year, putting additional pressure on countries’ ability to cover their import expenditures,” the report said.
The warning on sustained high food prices comes after Russia last month imposed price controls on food and other countries were forced to increase their food subsidies or scrap their food import tariffs.
The UN body has warned that high food prices could trigger social unrest, after episodes of strife this year in Mexico and Yemen.
Dairy products have so far registered the largest price increase, rising almost 65 per cent over the past 12 months, while grains and vegetable oil have surged almost 40 per cent. Meat prices have risen by about 6 per cent. Sugar costs, on the other hand, have declined by almost 35 per cent.
Mr Gurkan said that the food crisis had the potential of having an impact on long-term nutrition in contrast to previous episodes, which “were short lived and without lasting impact”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Farm Bill: Contrasting view: "Finally, an Editorial for Farmers"
In my effort to show the two sides of the Farm Bill debate, here an oped by Congressman Collin Peterson (D) represents Minnesota’s seventh Congressional district and is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. Although the underlying factors behind the subsides -the huge economic and political clout of the agribusiness sector in the US- and its impact on world prices are not addressed, the Congressman puts forward the usual arguments to defend the program: tradition and culture, food security, urban bias, and " safe, stable food supply".
In my opinion the fact that the small farmers argument is central in their justification to defend a policy that barely affects them, shows how little maneuver the Farm lobby has to insist in a policy that every year makes less sense.
Here is the article by the Congressman
Finally, an Editorial for Farmers (Original Post HERE)
In my position on the House Agriculture Committee, I have traveled around the country and met with many different kinds of farmers, and I have come to the conclusion that editorial board writers don’t spend a lot of time on farms.
If they spent some time in rural America, witnessing the hard work and risk that farmers and ranchers endure every day, I think we would see fewer editorial pages pontificating about farmers getting rich on taxpayer subsidies.
Every year, farmers and ranchers invest thousands of dollars into their crop, buying equipment, fuel, seed, fertilizer, water, labor and other inputs. They invest this money with no assurance that the seeds they put in the ground will produce a crop that will cover their investments, much less bring in enough money to support their families.
Is this the kind of investment you would be willing to make? Few Americans would put their credit, property and livelihood on the line every year, but that is what farmers and ranchers do, and they should be appreciated for that effort. Instead, they are demeaned for receiving federal support. This is a disgrace that reveals our collective ignorance of where our food comes from and why we pay some of the lowest food prices in the world.
Most people don’t understand that without the assurance of government payments, farmers may not be able to get the loans they need to plant a crop each year. If farmers can’t get financing from the bank, the other option they have is entering into contracts with big agribusinesses. If that happens, they’ll control the prices, and we’ll end up with vertically integrated agriculture, which means the end of independent family farming in this country. Americans need to ask themselves – would they rather support independent farmers in America or let big agribusiness control our food, fiber and fuel supplies.
The House-passed 2007 Farm Bill includes some meaningful reforms, including lower limits on adjusted gross income that prevent millionaires and wealthy non-farmers from receiving farm subsidies and changes that will tie farmers directly to the government payments they receive.
We have also made the largest federal investment in fruit and vegetable production in history. We have increased spending on nutrition programs that support needy families in the United States and abroad. We included new investments that will expand renewable energy production and use in our nation. This was accomplished because we had an open process that invited everyone to participate.
But for some, this isn’t enough. Nothing but a complete overhaul of our farm policy would please some critics. They have forgotten the last time we went out on an ideological limb on farm policy in 1996 with the ill-fated Freedom to Farm legislation.
The political environment then was similar to now. Commodity prices were high, and people thought they would stay high. Congress decided to phase out farm payments, and the consequences were disastrous. The government spent tens of billions of dollars over budget to prevent farmers nationwide from going out of business.
In 2002, we passed a Farm Bill that provided a safety net for farmers, making payments when prices are low and saving money when prices were high. This strategy worked for farmers and it also worked for the government. Since we passed the 2002 Farm Bill, it has cost much less than anyone expected. How many government programs can say they are spending LESS than expected?
Despite this success, some people again want to get rid of farm programs, destroying the safety net for farmers and ranchers. They don’t understand that drastic change has caused trouble in the past, and it will happen again.
This is an exciting time for American agriculture with a growing market for ethanol and other energy products helping farmers get fair prices on the market. It is possible that if these opportunities continue, there will be less need for subsidies in the future.
However, we can’t get ahead of ourselves like we did in 1996. We have a system that makes most payments when prices are low, so as long as prices stay high, reformers will get what they want – lower government payments for farmers. But, if prices drop, the system will support our farmers, so the public continues to get what they want – a safe, stable food supply. I think that’s a Farm Bill with something everyone can like.
About the Author: Congressman Collin Peterson (D) represents Minnesota’s seventh Congressional district and is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
In my opinion the fact that the small farmers argument is central in their justification to defend a policy that barely affects them, shows how little maneuver the Farm lobby has to insist in a policy that every year makes less sense.
Here is the article by the Congressman
Finally, an Editorial for Farmers (Original Post HERE)
In my position on the House Agriculture Committee, I have traveled around the country and met with many different kinds of farmers, and I have come to the conclusion that editorial board writers don’t spend a lot of time on farms.
If they spent some time in rural America, witnessing the hard work and risk that farmers and ranchers endure every day, I think we would see fewer editorial pages pontificating about farmers getting rich on taxpayer subsidies.
Every year, farmers and ranchers invest thousands of dollars into their crop, buying equipment, fuel, seed, fertilizer, water, labor and other inputs. They invest this money with no assurance that the seeds they put in the ground will produce a crop that will cover their investments, much less bring in enough money to support their families.
Is this the kind of investment you would be willing to make? Few Americans would put their credit, property and livelihood on the line every year, but that is what farmers and ranchers do, and they should be appreciated for that effort. Instead, they are demeaned for receiving federal support. This is a disgrace that reveals our collective ignorance of where our food comes from and why we pay some of the lowest food prices in the world.
Most people don’t understand that without the assurance of government payments, farmers may not be able to get the loans they need to plant a crop each year. If farmers can’t get financing from the bank, the other option they have is entering into contracts with big agribusinesses. If that happens, they’ll control the prices, and we’ll end up with vertically integrated agriculture, which means the end of independent family farming in this country. Americans need to ask themselves – would they rather support independent farmers in America or let big agribusiness control our food, fiber and fuel supplies.
The House-passed 2007 Farm Bill includes some meaningful reforms, including lower limits on adjusted gross income that prevent millionaires and wealthy non-farmers from receiving farm subsidies and changes that will tie farmers directly to the government payments they receive.
We have also made the largest federal investment in fruit and vegetable production in history. We have increased spending on nutrition programs that support needy families in the United States and abroad. We included new investments that will expand renewable energy production and use in our nation. This was accomplished because we had an open process that invited everyone to participate.
But for some, this isn’t enough. Nothing but a complete overhaul of our farm policy would please some critics. They have forgotten the last time we went out on an ideological limb on farm policy in 1996 with the ill-fated Freedom to Farm legislation.
The political environment then was similar to now. Commodity prices were high, and people thought they would stay high. Congress decided to phase out farm payments, and the consequences were disastrous. The government spent tens of billions of dollars over budget to prevent farmers nationwide from going out of business.
In 2002, we passed a Farm Bill that provided a safety net for farmers, making payments when prices are low and saving money when prices were high. This strategy worked for farmers and it also worked for the government. Since we passed the 2002 Farm Bill, it has cost much less than anyone expected. How many government programs can say they are spending LESS than expected?
Despite this success, some people again want to get rid of farm programs, destroying the safety net for farmers and ranchers. They don’t understand that drastic change has caused trouble in the past, and it will happen again.
This is an exciting time for American agriculture with a growing market for ethanol and other energy products helping farmers get fair prices on the market. It is possible that if these opportunities continue, there will be less need for subsidies in the future.
However, we can’t get ahead of ourselves like we did in 1996. We have a system that makes most payments when prices are low, so as long as prices stay high, reformers will get what they want – lower government payments for farmers. But, if prices drop, the system will support our farmers, so the public continues to get what they want – a safe, stable food supply. I think that’s a Farm Bill with something everyone can like.
About the Author: Congressman Collin Peterson (D) represents Minnesota’s seventh Congressional district and is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
More on Subsidies; articles from American Newspapers
Hi Folks,
I’ve put together some good articles that have come out during the past week about the Farm Bill debate and its implication in world poverty. Click on read more to get them all.
Any comments????
NYTimes Weed It and Reap By MICHAEL POLLAN
Washington Post Cotton and Conscience By Michael Gerson
Miami Herald A chance to end farm subsidies The Christian Science Monitor; Farmers deserve better
The Wall Street Journal Editorial. Farm Belt Follies
Op-Ed Contributor
Weed It and Reap
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Berkeley, Calif.
FOR Americans who have been looking to Congress to reform the food system, these past few weeks have been, well, the best of times and the worst of times. A new politics has sprouted up around the farm bill, traditionally a parochial piece of legislation thrashed out in private between the various agricultural interests (wheat growers versus corn growers; meatpackers versus ranchers) without a whole lot of input or attention from mere eaters.
Not this year. The eaters have spoken, much to the consternation of farm-state legislators who have fought hard — and at least so far with success — to preserve the status quo.
Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.
On Capitol Hill, hearings on the farm bill have been packed, and newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle are covering the legislation as closely as The Des Moines Register, bringing an unprecedented level of attention to what has long been one of the most obscure and least sexy pieces of legislation in Congress. Sensing the winds of reform at his back, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told a reporter in July: “This is not just a farm bill. It’s a food bill, and Americans who eat want a stake in it.”
Right now, that stake is looking more like a toothpick. Americans who eat have little to celebrate in the bill that Mr. Harkin is expected to bring to the floor this week. Like the House bill passed in July, the Senate product is very much a farm bill in the traditional let-them-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup mold.
For starters, the Old Guard on both agriculture committees has managed to preserve the entire hoary contraption of direct payments, countercyclical payments and loan deficiency payments that subsidize the five big commodity crops — corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and cotton — to the tune of $42 billion over five years.
The Old Guard has also managed to add a $5 billion “permanent disaster” program (excuse me, but isn’t a permanent disaster a contradiction in terms?) to help farmers in the High Plains struggling to grow crops in a drought-prone region that, as the chronic need for disaster aid suggests, might not be the best place to grow crops.
When you consider that farm income is at record levels (thanks to the ethanol boom, itself fueled by another set of federal subsidies); that the World Trade Organization has ruled that several of these subsidies are illegal; that the federal government is broke and the president is threatening a veto, bringing forth a $288 billion farm bill that guarantees billions in payments to commodity farmers seems impressively defiant.
How could this have happened? For starters, farm bill critics did a far better job demonizing subsidies, and depicting commodity farmers as welfare queens, than they did proposing alternative — and politically appealing — forms of farm support. And then the farm lobby did what it has always done: bought off its critics with “programs.” For that reason “Americans who eat” can expect some nutritious crumbs from the farm bill, just enough to ensure that reform-minded legislators will hold their noses and support it.
It’s an old story: the “hunger lobby” gets its food stamps so long as the farm lobby can have its subsidies. Similar, if less lavish, terms are now being offered to the public health and environmental “interests” to get them on board. That’s why there’s more money in this farm bill for nutrition programs and, for the first time, about $2 billion to support “specialty crops” — farm-bill-speak for the kind of food people actually eat. (Since California grows most of the nation’s specialty crops, this was the price for the state delegation’s support. Cheap indeed!)
There’s also money for the environment: an additional $4 billion in the Senate bill to protect wetlands and grasslands and reward farmers for environmental stewardship, and billions in the House bill for environmental cleanup. There’s an important provision in both bills that will make it easier for schools to buy food from local farmers. And there’s money to promote farmers’ markets and otherwise support the local food movement.
But as important as these programs are, they are just programs — mere fleas on the elephant in the room. The name of that elephant is the commodity title, the all-important subsidy section of the bill. It dictates the rules of the entire food system. As long as the commodity title remains untouched, the way we eat will remain unchanged.
The explanation for this is straightforward. We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap. Food stamps are crucial, surely, but they will be spent on processed rather than real food as long as the commodity title makes calories of fat and sugar the best deal in the supermarket. We would not need all these conservation programs if the commodity title, by paying farmers by the bushel, didn’t encourage them to maximize production with agrochemicals and plant their farms with just one crop fence row to fence row.
And the government would not need to pay feedlots to clean up the water or upgrade their manure pits if subsidized grain didn’t make rearing animals on feedlots more economical than keeping them on farms. Why does the farm bill pay feedlots to install waste treatment systems rather than simply pay ranchers to keep their animals on grass, where the soil would be only too happy to treat their waste at no cost?
However many worthwhile programs get tacked onto the farm bill to buy off its critics, they won’t bring meaningful reform to the American food system until the subsidies are addressed — until the underlying rules of the food game are rewritten. This is a conversation that the Old Guard on the agriculture committees simply does not want to have, at least not with us.
But its defiance on the subsidy question may actually be a sign of weakness, for one detects a note of defensiveness creeping into the rhetoric. “I know people on the outside can sit and complain about this,” Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, told The San Francisco Chronicle last summer. “But frankly most of those people have no clue what they’re talking about. Most people in the city have no concept of what’s going on here.”
It seems more likely that, this time around, people in the city and all across the country know exactly what’s going on — they just don’t like it.
Mr. Peterson’s farm bill passed the House by the smallest margin in years, and might have been picked apart on the floor if Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, hadn’t leapt to its defense.
(She claimed to be helping freshmen Democrats from rural districts.)
But Senate rules are different, and Mr. Harkin’s bill will be challenged on the floor and very possibly improved. One sensible amendment that Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, and Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, are expected to introduce would put a $250,000 cap on the payments any one farmer can receive in a year. This would free roughly $1 billion for other purposes (like food stamps and conservation) and slow the consolidation of farms in the Midwest.
A more radical alternative proposed by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would scrap the current subsidy system and replace it with a form of free government revenue insurance for all American farmers and ranchers, including the ones who grow actual food. Commodity farmers would receive a payment only when their income dropped more than 15 percent as the result of bad weather or price collapse. The $20 billion saved under this plan, called the Fresh Act, would go to conservation and nutrition programs, as well as to deficit reduction.
What finally emerges from Congress depends on exactly who is paying closest attention next week on the Senate floor and then later in the conference committee. We know the American Farm Bureau will be on the case, defending the commodity title on behalf of those who benefit from it most: the biggest commodity farmers, the corporations who sell them chemicals and equipment and, most of all, the buyers of cheap agricultural commodities — companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
In the past that alliance could have passed a farm bill like this one without breaking a sweat. But the politics of food have changed, and probably for good. If the eaters and all the other “people on the outside” make themselves heard, we just might end up with something that looks less like a farm bill and more like the food bill a poorly fed America so badly needs.
Michael Pollan, a contributing writer at The Times Magazine and a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and the forthcoming “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”
Cotton and Conscience
By Michael GersonWednesday, November 7, 2007; A21
In land area, the four West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali are about 1 1/2 times the size of the southern United States. Together, they have roughly the economic output of greater Charleston, S.C. And when the American economic giant shuffles its feet, these distant lands feel the earthquake.
Cotton provides an example. For years, the federal government has guaranteed American cotton producers about 72 cents a pound, even though the real market price of cotton has averaged about 57 cents. The more cotton U.S. growers produce, the more they get from the government in subsidies. Since 2002, market prices haven't even covered the cost of producing cotton, but the amount of acres planted in cotton has increased because the government guarantees a higher price.
Most Americans hardly notice this economic distortion and perhaps chalk it up to typical, interest-group politics. But the effects in the cotton-growing regions of West Africa are dramatic. American subsidies result in overproduction, which depresses the global price of cotton, which keeps millions of Africans on the edge of malnutrition. In some of the poorest countries on Earth, cotton farmers are some of the poorest people, earning about a dollar a day. The typical cotton-producing household has 10 members. About 40 percent of children under 5 are malnourished.
Who benefits from the current system of subsidies? About 20,000 American cotton producers, with an average annual income of more than $125,000 -- a portion of which goes to hire lobbyists. And these lobbyists do their work well. Even after the World Trade Organization in 2005 found U.S. cotton supports to be illegal, Congress made only cosmetic changes in policy. And recently the compliance panel of the WTO reaffirmed that America remains in violation.
Who would benefit from a reform of subsidies? A recent report by Oxfam America, " Paying the Price," estimates that family incomes for perhaps 10 million people in West Africa would increase by 2.3 to 5.7 percent. This extra cash would feed an additional 1 million children a year, or pay the school fees for 2 million children, or allow farm families to pay for medicine and buy fertilizer to increase their yields.
An odd alliance has gathered around the cause of reform. Fiscal conservatives such as the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste see cotton subsidies as a market-distorting waste of public money -- reducing the target price of cotton from 72 cents to 56 cents and changing the loan rate would save the U.S. government about $1.2 billion a year. Humanitarian and faith-based groups such as Bread for the World see subsidies as an enemy of economic growth in the developing world. Both are correct. They also see this year's farm bill as the chance to reverse an inefficiency that is also an injustice. Both understand it is an uphill fight.
There is a lively intellectual debate on the causes of the most extreme forms of global poverty. In his challenging new book, "The Bottom Billion," Oxford University professor Paul Collier details a range of "traps" that limit the potential of the poorest countries. Many of these countries have experienced internal conflict or are "cursed" by natural resources that distort their development and perversely undermine their growth. Some are landlocked nations without access to regional or global markets, while others suffer under corrupt and incompetent governments.
But whatever the ultimate reasons, at least some of this poverty exists because Congress has not acted in responsible ways on agricultural policy. So a fraction of the blame is our own. The cost to America of reforming cotton subsidies is low -- a mite from a billionaire. The benefit to the world's poorest people is great. As is often the case, bad economics turns out to be bad morality.
It is the nature of American global power that an ignored amendment in a boring agricultural debate can take or save lives in a distant village, among people who will never know the names of Richard Lugar, Ron Kind and Jeff Flake-- members of Congress leading this agriculture debate. But the price of power is moral responsibility. And giving African farmers a chance to earn and live is one of the clearest of those responsibilities.
Michael Gerson is the author of "Heroic Conservatism." His e-mail address ismichaelgerson@cfr.org.
A chance to end farm subsidies
Another disgraceful corporate welfare bill could come to the Senate floor today.
November 5, 2007It's good to be a farmer. With money rolling in as many subsidized crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans command unusually high prices, and with net farm income expected to hit a record this year, the government continues to throw cash at commodity growers. And despite the fact that a large coalition of corporate interests, environmentalists, nutritionists, economists and international anti-poverty groups has been loudly urging an end to this form of corporate welfare, Congress has so far turned a deaf ear.Last month, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a version of the 2007 farm bill every bit as bloated, unfair and irresponsible as the one passed by the House in July; it's expected to come to the Senate floor today. It will continue to award the bulk of subsidies to the richest growers and send checks to gentlemen farmers in Beverly Hills and Manhattan. It will continue to raise consumer prices for some crops, such as sugar, while distorting trade and wrecking livelihoods in the developing world. And it will waste about $16 billion annually in taxpayer money far better spent elsewhere -- the closest thing to "reform" in the Senate bill is a provision that would cut off payments to households making more than $750,000 a year, apparently under the rationale that farmers who make less than this are clearly in need of government assistance.Farm bill supporters from the handful of Midwestern states that benefit heavily from these subsidies have succeeded largely by buying off their opponents. Because the farm bill also funds food stamps, urban representatives in the House were persuaded to sign on when some $4 billion was added to that program. Lawmakers from states such as California that don't traditionally get much in the way of subsidies acquiesced when extra money was added for conservation, nutrition and specialty crops of the kind grown here, such as tree nuts and vegetables. Yet all of the most destructive provisions of the last five-year farm bill, an outrageous giveaway to agribusiness that continues to damage U.S. trade relationships, remain in place.There is some hope. Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) have proposed an alternative called the Fresh Act, which would do away with billions in trade-distorting subsidy payments. Instead, it would expand free crop insurance to farmers with incomes under $250,000 a year, paying off only when they lose money. Unlike the current system, it would benefit all farmers regardless of what they grow, so it could be a boon for California. Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should do the right thing by their state, the nation and the world and back it.
November 3, 2007
Editorial
Farm Belt Follies
The Senate has one last chance to rid the country of an irrational, outdated and unfair 70-year-old program of federal farm supports that enriches the few at the expense of the many, distorts international trade and damages the environment. It has one last chance, in other words, to produce a farm program of which the country can be proud.
Floor debate on the farm bill begins next week, possibly as early as Monday. The choice facing the Senate lies between an old-fashioned bill produced by the Senate Agriculture Committee and an entirely different bill that is expected to be offered as an amendment by Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican, and Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey.
The old-fashioned bill, which is only marginally better than a similarly retrograde measure approved earlier this year by the House, would perpetuate a system that directs more than half of all farm payments to less than one-tenth of the farms, most of them concentrated in eight states and most of them producers of big row crops like corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat and rice.
To make matters worse, these lucky few get their billions regardless of market conditions — and conditions now happen to be particularly good, given the strong demand for corn-based ethanol as well as for American farm products abroad. So whenever you hear its proponents describe this welfare-for-the-rich program as a safety net, remember this: for the most part, it provides an extra bounce for those who don’t need a safety net while failing to catch those who do.
The Lugar-Lautenberg bill aims to correct this. It would replace existing subsidies with genuine crop insurance that would cover all farms, whether they produce rice or rutabaga. It would save $20 billion over five years. And it would funnel the savings to valuable soil, open space and wetlands preservation programs, as well as the food stamps program — all of which could use the extra help.
The most visible enemies of such a sensible approach are all the farm state legislators from both parties who love things just the way they are. But an equally powerful enemy is plain old Congressional inertia. That makes the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment a long shot, but we hope they give it their best shot.
Farmers deserve better
The House and Senate bills only perpetuate a broken subsidy system. But there is an alternative.
Every five years, Congress rethinks its role in farming. Next week, the Senate debates a bill from its agriculture panel that perpetuates subsidies for a few crops and many well-off farmers. This time, however, it has a fresh choice.
Farming in the US is no longer simply a declining industry that needs a big federal prop-up in the name of "the family farm."
Many other worthwhile nonfarming interests have gained a stake over the years in how government influences the use of millions of farm acres and billions of taxpayer dollars.
Even born-in-the-cornsilk legislators who favor the current bill before the Senate (and a similar one passed by the House in July) have openly questioned the wisdom of traditional subsidies – $16 billion a year – but then they've vote for them anyway under pressure from well-funded farm lobbies.
Their questions start with recent revelations of the many rich farmers and corporations that receive the hefty subsidies.
They start with calls for other, often healthier foods, mainly fruits and vegetables, to also be supported – if there is to be federal support at all – and not just the current, main beneficiaries: corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans.
They start with growing evidence that corn ethanol is a net polluter of greenhouse gases and not worthy of massive subsidies.
They start with the need for better conservation of land, less pollution, and more opportunities for wildlife – which would mean no federal "disaster" support in drought-prone Plains states where commercial farming isn't viable.
They start with a rising public interest in growing and eating locally grown produce, especially if it's organic – and in reducing support for subsidized, highly processed foods.
They start with a US responsibility to trim its farm supports in order to push other nations to do the same and achieve a grand, new global trade pact.
To their credit, a few farmland senators have bucked the lobbyists and are proposing an overhaul of the federal role in farming.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) of New Jersey plan to introduce an alternative bill to the one recommended by the Senate Agriculture Committee. It provides a new type of safety net against the ups and downs of climate and markets, but it would eventually end the program that provides direct payments when prices are low to only a few types of farmers.
It would instead provide a type of insurance that would be available to many kinds of crops and would be based on crop revenues calculated on averages. It would end a system in which only about one-third of farmers receive subsidies – and of those, only the top one-fifth get most of the money. And it would end a system in which only seven states – Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, and Illinois – received more than half of all federal farm supports.
Under the Lugar-Lautenberg bill, more money would go to land conservation and a wider range of healthier foods, while saving the US budget about $3 billion a year.
While it may not be perfect, the bill can serve to push Congress out of its lock-step support of a system created in the Depression, and which needed a radical change soon after it. Now lawmakers have a chance to make up for lost opportunities.
I’ve put together some good articles that have come out during the past week about the Farm Bill debate and its implication in world poverty. Click on read more to get them all.
Any comments????
NYTimes Weed It and Reap By MICHAEL POLLAN
Washington Post Cotton and Conscience By Michael Gerson
Miami Herald A chance to end farm subsidies The Christian Science Monitor; Farmers deserve better
The Wall Street Journal Editorial. Farm Belt Follies
Op-Ed Contributor
Weed It and Reap
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Berkeley, Calif.
FOR Americans who have been looking to Congress to reform the food system, these past few weeks have been, well, the best of times and the worst of times. A new politics has sprouted up around the farm bill, traditionally a parochial piece of legislation thrashed out in private between the various agricultural interests (wheat growers versus corn growers; meatpackers versus ranchers) without a whole lot of input or attention from mere eaters.
Not this year. The eaters have spoken, much to the consternation of farm-state legislators who have fought hard — and at least so far with success — to preserve the status quo.
Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.
On Capitol Hill, hearings on the farm bill have been packed, and newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle are covering the legislation as closely as The Des Moines Register, bringing an unprecedented level of attention to what has long been one of the most obscure and least sexy pieces of legislation in Congress. Sensing the winds of reform at his back, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told a reporter in July: “This is not just a farm bill. It’s a food bill, and Americans who eat want a stake in it.”
Right now, that stake is looking more like a toothpick. Americans who eat have little to celebrate in the bill that Mr. Harkin is expected to bring to the floor this week. Like the House bill passed in July, the Senate product is very much a farm bill in the traditional let-them-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup mold.
For starters, the Old Guard on both agriculture committees has managed to preserve the entire hoary contraption of direct payments, countercyclical payments and loan deficiency payments that subsidize the five big commodity crops — corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and cotton — to the tune of $42 billion over five years.
The Old Guard has also managed to add a $5 billion “permanent disaster” program (excuse me, but isn’t a permanent disaster a contradiction in terms?) to help farmers in the High Plains struggling to grow crops in a drought-prone region that, as the chronic need for disaster aid suggests, might not be the best place to grow crops.
When you consider that farm income is at record levels (thanks to the ethanol boom, itself fueled by another set of federal subsidies); that the World Trade Organization has ruled that several of these subsidies are illegal; that the federal government is broke and the president is threatening a veto, bringing forth a $288 billion farm bill that guarantees billions in payments to commodity farmers seems impressively defiant.
How could this have happened? For starters, farm bill critics did a far better job demonizing subsidies, and depicting commodity farmers as welfare queens, than they did proposing alternative — and politically appealing — forms of farm support. And then the farm lobby did what it has always done: bought off its critics with “programs.” For that reason “Americans who eat” can expect some nutritious crumbs from the farm bill, just enough to ensure that reform-minded legislators will hold their noses and support it.
It’s an old story: the “hunger lobby” gets its food stamps so long as the farm lobby can have its subsidies. Similar, if less lavish, terms are now being offered to the public health and environmental “interests” to get them on board. That’s why there’s more money in this farm bill for nutrition programs and, for the first time, about $2 billion to support “specialty crops” — farm-bill-speak for the kind of food people actually eat. (Since California grows most of the nation’s specialty crops, this was the price for the state delegation’s support. Cheap indeed!)
There’s also money for the environment: an additional $4 billion in the Senate bill to protect wetlands and grasslands and reward farmers for environmental stewardship, and billions in the House bill for environmental cleanup. There’s an important provision in both bills that will make it easier for schools to buy food from local farmers. And there’s money to promote farmers’ markets and otherwise support the local food movement.
But as important as these programs are, they are just programs — mere fleas on the elephant in the room. The name of that elephant is the commodity title, the all-important subsidy section of the bill. It dictates the rules of the entire food system. As long as the commodity title remains untouched, the way we eat will remain unchanged.
The explanation for this is straightforward. We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap. Food stamps are crucial, surely, but they will be spent on processed rather than real food as long as the commodity title makes calories of fat and sugar the best deal in the supermarket. We would not need all these conservation programs if the commodity title, by paying farmers by the bushel, didn’t encourage them to maximize production with agrochemicals and plant their farms with just one crop fence row to fence row.
And the government would not need to pay feedlots to clean up the water or upgrade their manure pits if subsidized grain didn’t make rearing animals on feedlots more economical than keeping them on farms. Why does the farm bill pay feedlots to install waste treatment systems rather than simply pay ranchers to keep their animals on grass, where the soil would be only too happy to treat their waste at no cost?
However many worthwhile programs get tacked onto the farm bill to buy off its critics, they won’t bring meaningful reform to the American food system until the subsidies are addressed — until the underlying rules of the food game are rewritten. This is a conversation that the Old Guard on the agriculture committees simply does not want to have, at least not with us.
But its defiance on the subsidy question may actually be a sign of weakness, for one detects a note of defensiveness creeping into the rhetoric. “I know people on the outside can sit and complain about this,” Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, told The San Francisco Chronicle last summer. “But frankly most of those people have no clue what they’re talking about. Most people in the city have no concept of what’s going on here.”
It seems more likely that, this time around, people in the city and all across the country know exactly what’s going on — they just don’t like it.
Mr. Peterson’s farm bill passed the House by the smallest margin in years, and might have been picked apart on the floor if Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, hadn’t leapt to its defense.
(She claimed to be helping freshmen Democrats from rural districts.)
But Senate rules are different, and Mr. Harkin’s bill will be challenged on the floor and very possibly improved. One sensible amendment that Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, and Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, are expected to introduce would put a $250,000 cap on the payments any one farmer can receive in a year. This would free roughly $1 billion for other purposes (like food stamps and conservation) and slow the consolidation of farms in the Midwest.
A more radical alternative proposed by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would scrap the current subsidy system and replace it with a form of free government revenue insurance for all American farmers and ranchers, including the ones who grow actual food. Commodity farmers would receive a payment only when their income dropped more than 15 percent as the result of bad weather or price collapse. The $20 billion saved under this plan, called the Fresh Act, would go to conservation and nutrition programs, as well as to deficit reduction.
What finally emerges from Congress depends on exactly who is paying closest attention next week on the Senate floor and then later in the conference committee. We know the American Farm Bureau will be on the case, defending the commodity title on behalf of those who benefit from it most: the biggest commodity farmers, the corporations who sell them chemicals and equipment and, most of all, the buyers of cheap agricultural commodities — companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
In the past that alliance could have passed a farm bill like this one without breaking a sweat. But the politics of food have changed, and probably for good. If the eaters and all the other “people on the outside” make themselves heard, we just might end up with something that looks less like a farm bill and more like the food bill a poorly fed America so badly needs.
Michael Pollan, a contributing writer at The Times Magazine and a professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and the forthcoming “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”
Cotton and Conscience
By Michael GersonWednesday, November 7, 2007; A21
In land area, the four West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali are about 1 1/2 times the size of the southern United States. Together, they have roughly the economic output of greater Charleston, S.C. And when the American economic giant shuffles its feet, these distant lands feel the earthquake.
Cotton provides an example. For years, the federal government has guaranteed American cotton producers about 72 cents a pound, even though the real market price of cotton has averaged about 57 cents. The more cotton U.S. growers produce, the more they get from the government in subsidies. Since 2002, market prices haven't even covered the cost of producing cotton, but the amount of acres planted in cotton has increased because the government guarantees a higher price.
Most Americans hardly notice this economic distortion and perhaps chalk it up to typical, interest-group politics. But the effects in the cotton-growing regions of West Africa are dramatic. American subsidies result in overproduction, which depresses the global price of cotton, which keeps millions of Africans on the edge of malnutrition. In some of the poorest countries on Earth, cotton farmers are some of the poorest people, earning about a dollar a day. The typical cotton-producing household has 10 members. About 40 percent of children under 5 are malnourished.
Who benefits from the current system of subsidies? About 20,000 American cotton producers, with an average annual income of more than $125,000 -- a portion of which goes to hire lobbyists. And these lobbyists do their work well. Even after the World Trade Organization in 2005 found U.S. cotton supports to be illegal, Congress made only cosmetic changes in policy. And recently the compliance panel of the WTO reaffirmed that America remains in violation.
Who would benefit from a reform of subsidies? A recent report by Oxfam America, " Paying the Price," estimates that family incomes for perhaps 10 million people in West Africa would increase by 2.3 to 5.7 percent. This extra cash would feed an additional 1 million children a year, or pay the school fees for 2 million children, or allow farm families to pay for medicine and buy fertilizer to increase their yields.
An odd alliance has gathered around the cause of reform. Fiscal conservatives such as the nonprofit Citizens Against Government Waste see cotton subsidies as a market-distorting waste of public money -- reducing the target price of cotton from 72 cents to 56 cents and changing the loan rate would save the U.S. government about $1.2 billion a year. Humanitarian and faith-based groups such as Bread for the World see subsidies as an enemy of economic growth in the developing world. Both are correct. They also see this year's farm bill as the chance to reverse an inefficiency that is also an injustice. Both understand it is an uphill fight.
There is a lively intellectual debate on the causes of the most extreme forms of global poverty. In his challenging new book, "The Bottom Billion," Oxford University professor Paul Collier details a range of "traps" that limit the potential of the poorest countries. Many of these countries have experienced internal conflict or are "cursed" by natural resources that distort their development and perversely undermine their growth. Some are landlocked nations without access to regional or global markets, while others suffer under corrupt and incompetent governments.
But whatever the ultimate reasons, at least some of this poverty exists because Congress has not acted in responsible ways on agricultural policy. So a fraction of the blame is our own. The cost to America of reforming cotton subsidies is low -- a mite from a billionaire. The benefit to the world's poorest people is great. As is often the case, bad economics turns out to be bad morality.
It is the nature of American global power that an ignored amendment in a boring agricultural debate can take or save lives in a distant village, among people who will never know the names of Richard Lugar, Ron Kind and Jeff Flake-- members of Congress leading this agriculture debate. But the price of power is moral responsibility. And giving African farmers a chance to earn and live is one of the clearest of those responsibilities.
Michael Gerson is the author of "Heroic Conservatism." His e-mail address ismichaelgerson@cfr.org.
A chance to end farm subsidies
Another disgraceful corporate welfare bill could come to the Senate floor today.
November 5, 2007It's good to be a farmer. With money rolling in as many subsidized crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans command unusually high prices, and with net farm income expected to hit a record this year, the government continues to throw cash at commodity growers. And despite the fact that a large coalition of corporate interests, environmentalists, nutritionists, economists and international anti-poverty groups has been loudly urging an end to this form of corporate welfare, Congress has so far turned a deaf ear.Last month, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved a version of the 2007 farm bill every bit as bloated, unfair and irresponsible as the one passed by the House in July; it's expected to come to the Senate floor today. It will continue to award the bulk of subsidies to the richest growers and send checks to gentlemen farmers in Beverly Hills and Manhattan. It will continue to raise consumer prices for some crops, such as sugar, while distorting trade and wrecking livelihoods in the developing world. And it will waste about $16 billion annually in taxpayer money far better spent elsewhere -- the closest thing to "reform" in the Senate bill is a provision that would cut off payments to households making more than $750,000 a year, apparently under the rationale that farmers who make less than this are clearly in need of government assistance.Farm bill supporters from the handful of Midwestern states that benefit heavily from these subsidies have succeeded largely by buying off their opponents. Because the farm bill also funds food stamps, urban representatives in the House were persuaded to sign on when some $4 billion was added to that program. Lawmakers from states such as California that don't traditionally get much in the way of subsidies acquiesced when extra money was added for conservation, nutrition and specialty crops of the kind grown here, such as tree nuts and vegetables. Yet all of the most destructive provisions of the last five-year farm bill, an outrageous giveaway to agribusiness that continues to damage U.S. trade relationships, remain in place.There is some hope. Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) have proposed an alternative called the Fresh Act, which would do away with billions in trade-distorting subsidy payments. Instead, it would expand free crop insurance to farmers with incomes under $250,000 a year, paying off only when they lose money. Unlike the current system, it would benefit all farmers regardless of what they grow, so it could be a boon for California. Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer should do the right thing by their state, the nation and the world and back it.
November 3, 2007
Editorial
Farm Belt Follies
The Senate has one last chance to rid the country of an irrational, outdated and unfair 70-year-old program of federal farm supports that enriches the few at the expense of the many, distorts international trade and damages the environment. It has one last chance, in other words, to produce a farm program of which the country can be proud.
Floor debate on the farm bill begins next week, possibly as early as Monday. The choice facing the Senate lies between an old-fashioned bill produced by the Senate Agriculture Committee and an entirely different bill that is expected to be offered as an amendment by Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican, and Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey.
The old-fashioned bill, which is only marginally better than a similarly retrograde measure approved earlier this year by the House, would perpetuate a system that directs more than half of all farm payments to less than one-tenth of the farms, most of them concentrated in eight states and most of them producers of big row crops like corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat and rice.
To make matters worse, these lucky few get their billions regardless of market conditions — and conditions now happen to be particularly good, given the strong demand for corn-based ethanol as well as for American farm products abroad. So whenever you hear its proponents describe this welfare-for-the-rich program as a safety net, remember this: for the most part, it provides an extra bounce for those who don’t need a safety net while failing to catch those who do.
The Lugar-Lautenberg bill aims to correct this. It would replace existing subsidies with genuine crop insurance that would cover all farms, whether they produce rice or rutabaga. It would save $20 billion over five years. And it would funnel the savings to valuable soil, open space and wetlands preservation programs, as well as the food stamps program — all of which could use the extra help.
The most visible enemies of such a sensible approach are all the farm state legislators from both parties who love things just the way they are. But an equally powerful enemy is plain old Congressional inertia. That makes the Lugar-Lautenberg amendment a long shot, but we hope they give it their best shot.
Farmers deserve better
The House and Senate bills only perpetuate a broken subsidy system. But there is an alternative.
Every five years, Congress rethinks its role in farming. Next week, the Senate debates a bill from its agriculture panel that perpetuates subsidies for a few crops and many well-off farmers. This time, however, it has a fresh choice.
Farming in the US is no longer simply a declining industry that needs a big federal prop-up in the name of "the family farm."
Many other worthwhile nonfarming interests have gained a stake over the years in how government influences the use of millions of farm acres and billions of taxpayer dollars.
Even born-in-the-cornsilk legislators who favor the current bill before the Senate (and a similar one passed by the House in July) have openly questioned the wisdom of traditional subsidies – $16 billion a year – but then they've vote for them anyway under pressure from well-funded farm lobbies.
Their questions start with recent revelations of the many rich farmers and corporations that receive the hefty subsidies.
They start with calls for other, often healthier foods, mainly fruits and vegetables, to also be supported – if there is to be federal support at all – and not just the current, main beneficiaries: corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans.
They start with growing evidence that corn ethanol is a net polluter of greenhouse gases and not worthy of massive subsidies.
They start with the need for better conservation of land, less pollution, and more opportunities for wildlife – which would mean no federal "disaster" support in drought-prone Plains states where commercial farming isn't viable.
They start with a rising public interest in growing and eating locally grown produce, especially if it's organic – and in reducing support for subsidized, highly processed foods.
They start with a US responsibility to trim its farm supports in order to push other nations to do the same and achieve a grand, new global trade pact.
To their credit, a few farmland senators have bucked the lobbyists and are proposing an overhaul of the federal role in farming.
Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) of New Jersey plan to introduce an alternative bill to the one recommended by the Senate Agriculture Committee. It provides a new type of safety net against the ups and downs of climate and markets, but it would eventually end the program that provides direct payments when prices are low to only a few types of farmers.
It would instead provide a type of insurance that would be available to many kinds of crops and would be based on crop revenues calculated on averages. It would end a system in which only about one-third of farmers receive subsidies – and of those, only the top one-fifth get most of the money. And it would end a system in which only seven states – Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Minnesota, and Illinois – received more than half of all federal farm supports.
Under the Lugar-Lautenberg bill, more money would go to land conservation and a wider range of healthier foods, while saving the US budget about $3 billion a year.
While it may not be perfect, the bill can serve to push Congress out of its lock-step support of a system created in the Depression, and which needed a radical change soon after it. Now lawmakers have a chance to make up for lost opportunities.
Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People
Here is another intersting seminar on the 2020 series at IFPRI. Hope to see you there.
IFPRI cordially invites you to a 2020 Vision Policy Seminar
Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People
Monday, November 19, 2007
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Lunch to Follow
The Melrose Hotel
Potomac Rooms I & II
2430 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
Please feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues. Kindly RSVP
to s.hill-lee@cgiar.org or 202.862.8107.
Speakers:
Akhter Ahmed, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
Johannes Linn, Executive Director, Global Economy and Development, The Wolfensohn Center , The Brookings Institution
Joachim von Braun, Director General, IFPRI
Chair:
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, Head, 2020 Vision Initiative, IFPRI
Despite much progress reducing poverty worldwide, a substantial number of the world's poorest people are being left behind. New IFPRI research finds that 162 million of the world's poorest people -- the "ultra poor" -- survive on less than 50 cents a day. They have benefited the least from substantial reductions in poverty around the world during the past 15 years. Who are these poorest people? Why are they being left behind? What new and different actions are needed to accelerate poverty and hunger reduction for these people?
The seminar will:
* highlight the new report on "The World's Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger";
* offer insights on the suitable mix of pro-poor growth and social protection policies to decisively accelerate poverty and hunger reduction, and address political and institutional changes needed for effective action; and
* present conclusions and recommendations for the way forward from an international conference "Taking Action for the World's Poor and Hungry People" held October 17-19, 2007, in Beijing, in which more than 400 leading policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from around the world participated.
IFPRI cordially invites you to a 2020 Vision Policy Seminar
Taking Action for the World’s Poor and Hungry People
Monday, November 19, 2007
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Lunch to Follow
The Melrose Hotel
Potomac Rooms I & II
2430 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
Please feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues. Kindly RSVP
to s.hill-lee@cgiar.org or 202.862.8107.
Speakers:
Akhter Ahmed, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI
Johannes Linn, Executive Director, Global Economy and Development, The Wolfensohn Center , The Brookings Institution
Joachim von Braun, Director General, IFPRI
Chair:
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, Head, 2020 Vision Initiative, IFPRI
Despite much progress reducing poverty worldwide, a substantial number of the world's poorest people are being left behind. New IFPRI research finds that 162 million of the world's poorest people -- the "ultra poor" -- survive on less than 50 cents a day. They have benefited the least from substantial reductions in poverty around the world during the past 15 years. Who are these poorest people? Why are they being left behind? What new and different actions are needed to accelerate poverty and hunger reduction for these people?
The seminar will:
* highlight the new report on "The World's Most Deprived: Characteristics and Causes of Extreme Poverty and Hunger";
* offer insights on the suitable mix of pro-poor growth and social protection policies to decisively accelerate poverty and hunger reduction, and address political and institutional changes needed for effective action; and
* present conclusions and recommendations for the way forward from an international conference "Taking Action for the World's Poor and Hungry People" held October 17-19, 2007, in Beijing, in which more than 400 leading policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from around the world participated.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
World Development Report 2008; Agriculture for Development
Finally, after decades of diminishing budgets towards agriculture and rural development, Ag Dev is back on the donors' agenda with the seminar publication of World Bank's WDR Agriculture for Development. Last time a WDR had Agriculture as a main topic was back in 1982!. It's hard to tell if the rhetoric will translate into concrete action and funds from the donor community. Yet, one can perceive in the Washingtonian atmosphere the smell of agriculture. Due in part to the discussions on the Farm Bill due before the end of next year, agriculture has been occupying a lot of headlines lately. Lets hope policy makers use the report as a basis their foreign assistance approaches. Mas vale tarde que nunca.
Click on picture to get full PDF, or click HERE to get the reports' official website. See interesting article of the report on NYtimes
Click on picture to get full PDF, or click HERE to get the reports' official website. See interesting article of the report on NYtimes
Get your copy!!
this will be my nightstand for a while, so stay tuned for some commentary
Monday, November 05, 2007
West Africa, in Pictures
Hi Folks,
Here are some picture of my trip to Togo, Ghana, and Benin. If you would like to see them all follow this link
A typical Tropical fruit stand.
Traditional Grain Storage
Pounding the seeds of African palm to obtain oil.
A welcoming Yam
Here are some picture of my trip to Togo, Ghana, and Benin. If you would like to see them all follow this link
A typical Tropical fruit stand.
Traditional Grain Storage
Pounding the seeds of African palm to obtain oil.
A welcoming Yam
Monday, June 18, 2007
My neighbor’s Plot
Summer is finally here and the garden is blooming. The tomatoes can't be happier with the temperature nearing the hundreds and my butterfly bush is about to flower. It feels great to be able to escape from the urban setting and get some dirt under your nails and look at the zucchinis grow by the inches everyday. Sundays remind me the Mingas of our ancestors as everybody is working in their plots, yet one way or another we’re all connected. There is an strong sense of collaboration and cooperation: Tools are borrow and lend, seeds and plants exchanged, and advices and suggestions given. I particularly enjoy asking question to older people as their answers always become stories, filled with anecdotes, characters, and places from other times. They love to tell them and I love to hear them.
My neighbor farmed for decades in Louisiana. He grew sugar cane, tobacco and other cash crops. Eventually, as his family move to Washington looking for better opportunities and his hands were not as strong to carry the hoe anymore, he realized it was time to go elsewhere. He didn’t want to leave his beloved farm, where his parent and his grandparents had also farmed. Humans have always been extremely attached to land and family making the decision of choosing one from the other extremely difficult. With great sadness, he left Louisiana about a decade ago. Not used to the busy life of the city and the tied schedule of his children, his body complain everyday about the lack of sun, soil, and water; about the lack of the smell of fertilizer, the harvest…
One fathers day, a couple years ago, his daughter rented a plot at our community garden for him. With the excuse of shopping at Costco, his family took their dad to the garden where a plot filled with weeds was waiting anxiously for him. He couldn’t be happier. Today, his plot is one of the best ones. Clean like a whistle you cannot find a plant that hasn’t been purposely sow. The straight rows of kales, mustards, and collars along with peas, beans, and squashes make the most beautiful display of the colors of nature. Everyday, he waters his plants early in the morning, looks for white flies in the chard, and pick the tomatoes before they’re too ripe. Looking forward for the next day, my neighbor found in the garden, that needed peace that was missing since he left his farm a decade ago. Ask him about anything, more than likely, he’ll tell you the story a lot better that my words can describe.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Food Cirsis in Lesotho
The picture that lies behind the title of this blog was taken a couple year ago while touring the mountains of the kingdom of Lesotho. Despite its breathtaking beauty, this picture encompasses the hardship on which the people of Lesotho- the Basotho- have to live in. If you look closely into the photo, you’ll see small patches of grass, surrounded by growing gullies, worrying signs of erosion. Yet, astonishingly you will also find goats and other grazing animals in those remaining green patches. Initially I couldn’t understand the rationality behind such act: in a couple years there won’t be any grass left, translating into no milk for the family, not traction for the fields, no fertilizer for the land and no food. However, once we started walking around the village with the extension agent I was traveling with, I started to understand the people’s way of doing things. The Basotho living in this village were making the best use their resources given what they have. Looking into the future was not a possibility if you couldn’t be able to feed your children today. Putting aside grass plots to recuperate was not an option when there are not other places to take the animals to. A sad reality of surviving the day hoping better things come tomorrow.
But it seems that worse things, rather than better ones, are coming their way. According to an Special Report released by FAO yesterday, the country is in the way to what it could become a very drastic food shortages. The report estimates 400.000 people- a fifth of the population- won’t be able to meet their minimum food requirements. FAO and WFP believe that at least 30.000 tons of cereal or its cash equivalent will be necessary to address the crisis.
What or who to blame? Well there are local natural factors such as the poor agricultural practices, lack of arable land, and land degradation as well as a 30 year high drought. By the way, water is their main source of income as is dam and then sold to south Africa. Lesotho also has one of the highest rates of AIDS (percentage wise about 30%) which undermines the productive population leaving land idle. More significant though is the increase in cereal prices that its only neighbor and main exporter, South Africa, is experiencing. According to the report there has been 400% increase in the price basic cereals like sorghum and maize. These are essential to the Basotho diet which consist mainly of Papa (boiled corn or sorghum floor with), some vegetables and meat if you’re better off.
Is it the Chinese eating more meat, or the American craze toward ethanol, or the reduction in regional harvest due to weather? I don’t know. What I’m sure is that the village in the photo you see in this blog has probably gone elsewhere looking for fresher fields that probably don’t exist. So next time you see that photo think about them and act. I’ll do the same.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Animal Traction. Pasto, Nariño (Colombia)
My Grandmother and Her sister in the Mountains of Pasto, Nariño (Colombia)
Originally uploaded by rafamerchan.
My sister brought some old pictures from her last trip to Colombia and my parents have asked me to scanned them all!!!. Well it's been fun. Behind every picture there is a anecdote, or a long story (depending whether is my dad or Mon telling it) and now I can named a couple of my past generations.
This picture I found very interesting. On it, you can see my grand mother Marina Guerrero and her sister Alloyon Guerrero. They both sitting in plow pulled by a couple of bulls. Behind, you can see indigenous people of the Southwest of Colombia, in the Andean Region.
I'll be posting more old Ag pics, as i find them. There are literally hundreds waiting to be scanned.
Later
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
EVENT: Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research & Development
Very relevant seminar. Finally the IFPRI is thinking about the next generation of professionals.
Spread the word
****BROWN BAG SEMINAR****
Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research & Development
Challenges Facing "Young Professionals" in Agricultural Research & Development
Perspectives from "Young Professionals"
by Balasubramanian Ramani, YPARD Coordinator
Monday, 26 March 2007
12:00 -- 2:00 p.m.
Lunch will be provided
About YPARD
The Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) was formed to give prominence to the needs and views of young professionals active in development-related agricultural research. YPARD will serve as a global platform through which young professionals can express their ideas and realize their full potential towards a dynamic agricultural research for development. YPARD encourages professionals under the age of 40 to share information and engage in policy debates on issues such as research priorities and genetic engineering. Dr. Balasubramanian Ramani, YPARD Coordinator, will provide background on the organization and discuss how you might contribute to and benefit from YPARD. For more information please see YPARD’s web site at www.YPARD.org.
Abstract
Agriculture has been and will remain a key component of our efforts to reduce global poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Agriculture Research for Development (ARD) plays an important role in poverty alleviation and in reaching poor farmers. The growing challenge of feeding the world's population in a sustainable manner requires to actively seek effective solutions on a worldwide scale. Science and technology will play a vital role. Two critical contributions are (i) the training of qualified professionals and (ii) the promotion of need-based research to solve key problems. Global cooperation can assist in the dissemination of innovations in teaching and scientific research activities. Efforts are required to educate and train young people in their country or region of origin, to create competences needed both at home and on the international labor market, aiming at sustainable professional capacity for innovation and development.. In the existing structure of many developing countries, a skilled and motivated labor force of agricultural professionals can be a key to successful development.
The above arguments support a call for an integrated global initiative to encourage young people to pursue education and a career in Agriculture Research for Development, which will have a significant impact on the live and livelihoods of their fellow countrymen.
Simone Hill LeeSeminars & ConferencesIFPRIEmail: s.hill-lee@cgiar.orgFax: (202) 467-4439Phone: (202) 862-8107Visit our web site <www.ifpri.org> for the latest IFPRI news and to download hundreds of food policy research publications.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are pleased to invite you to a special Brown Bag seminar, which will be held in our fourth floor conference facility located at 2033 K Street, NW (entrance on 21st Street, between K and L Streets). Please feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues. A sandwich lunch will be provided. RSVP to Simone Hill Lee (s.hill-lee@cgiar.org; Tel: 202.862.8107).
Spread the word
****BROWN BAG SEMINAR****
Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research & Development
Challenges Facing "Young Professionals" in Agricultural Research & Development
Perspectives from "Young Professionals"
by Balasubramanian Ramani, YPARD Coordinator
Monday, 26 March 2007
12:00 -- 2:00 p.m.
Lunch will be provided
About YPARD
The Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD) was formed to give prominence to the needs and views of young professionals active in development-related agricultural research. YPARD will serve as a global platform through which young professionals can express their ideas and realize their full potential towards a dynamic agricultural research for development. YPARD encourages professionals under the age of 40 to share information and engage in policy debates on issues such as research priorities and genetic engineering. Dr. Balasubramanian Ramani, YPARD Coordinator, will provide background on the organization and discuss how you might contribute to and benefit from YPARD. For more information please see YPARD’s web site at www.YPARD.org.
Abstract
Agriculture has been and will remain a key component of our efforts to reduce global poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Agriculture Research for Development (ARD) plays an important role in poverty alleviation and in reaching poor farmers. The growing challenge of feeding the world's population in a sustainable manner requires to actively seek effective solutions on a worldwide scale. Science and technology will play a vital role. Two critical contributions are (i) the training of qualified professionals and (ii) the promotion of need-based research to solve key problems. Global cooperation can assist in the dissemination of innovations in teaching and scientific research activities. Efforts are required to educate and train young people in their country or region of origin, to create competences needed both at home and on the international labor market, aiming at sustainable professional capacity for innovation and development.. In the existing structure of many developing countries, a skilled and motivated labor force of agricultural professionals can be a key to successful development.
The above arguments support a call for an integrated global initiative to encourage young people to pursue education and a career in Agriculture Research for Development, which will have a significant impact on the live and livelihoods of their fellow countrymen.
Simone Hill LeeSeminars & ConferencesIFPRIEmail: s.hill-lee@cgiar.orgFax: (202) 467-4439Phone: (202) 862-8107Visit our web site <www.ifpri.org> for the latest IFPRI news and to download hundreds of food policy research publications.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are pleased to invite you to a special Brown Bag seminar, which will be held in our fourth floor conference facility located at 2033 K Street, NW (entrance on 21st Street, between K and L Streets). Please feel free to share this invitation with your colleagues. A sandwich lunch will be provided. RSVP to Simone Hill Lee (s.hill-lee@cgiar.org; Tel: 202.862.8107).
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Trends on Food Security and the work of Gordon Conway
The debate on food security seems to be shifting from undernutrition to malnutrition or, in other words, from quantity to quality. The developing world, urbanizing at a rapid stage, is experiencing a move from diseases resulting from lack of food to diseases resulting from a poor diet balance. As food in the cities tend to be more accessible, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are becoming very prevalent in emerging economies like Mexico and India. Both, the change in the diet (more meat, sugars, and oils) and the change in life styles (less walking more sitting) are causing this health care crisis. However, the international development community must not forget about the people who are still living on conditions of starvation and severe food insecurity.
As clearly discussed on the book “The Elusive Quest for Growth” by William Easterly, development practitioners keep coming out with panaceas in attempting to solve world’s problems. Ranging from industrialization and education to production and more recently governance, each “golden bullet” takes away resources of other programs. For instance, the World Bank’s relatively new emphasis on governance and institutional reform has displaced resource from still vital agricultural projects.
Although comprehensive and holistic approaches are becoming more popular in international development, the panacea approach still prevails, undermining the sustainability and continuity of the development process (which is generational on its nature). This is not to say that programs proven to be unsuccessful should remain funded. Rather programs that were effective must not be replaced for newer and trendier approaches to development.
All this to say that, although diet quality will definitely present a new challenge to developing countries, there is still a lot of work needed for those that are not getting enough on their tables. In this point, Gordon Conway, world renowned agricultural ecologist and one of the first one to develop the concept of sustainable agriculture, suggest what he calls the “doubly green revolution”; a “green revolution” with its increases in productivity and efficiency with an additional emphasis on environmental sustainability and participatory approaches.
In a couple hours I’ll be attending a presentation of his work at IFPRI from which I’ll be posting some of his remarks in this blog. Yet, from what I’ve read so far, his work needs support, not only because we still have a lot of hungry people in this world, but also because we must give continuity to the programs that worked.
His book “The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for All in the Twenty-First Century”
His paper “The Paradoxes of Integrated Development”
Quote "To realize lasting peace and sustainable development in human society, members of the international community have to cooperate with one another fully and make concerted efforts" Wu Bangguo
to tackle
Saturday, January 27, 2007
About AGDES and Myself
AGDES started in early 2006 as a way to express my thoughts on the issues I was interested on; mainly agriculture and rural development but also politics, trade, environment, and gardening. Little by little and thanks to the feedback of many readers, the blog started to become a resource site for students thinking about their future careers, jobs seekers interested in international development, and young professionals looking for advice in their careers. As i try to reach out to many audiences, AGDES is all over the place. One day i use the blog to talk about my garden, another day i use it to express my views on the expansion of soy crops in Brazil. International Development is comprehensive and it will be foolish to try to focus. This generalist approach, i think, is essential to understand development.
Rafael
Merchan is a development practitioner specializing in international food
security and nutrition. He has over five years of professional experience
working for non-governmental organizations, multilateral institutions, and
United Nations agencies in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. While most of his
experience has been in business development, he has also managed projects and
conducted field research. Currently, he is second year graduate student at
Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs (SIPA), pursing a
MPA in Development Practice.
More recently, as part of his MPA in Development Practice, Rafael interned for the UN’s World Food Program in Mozambique. He help established an office for a new multi-agency UN initiative that supports countries with high burdens of stunting in the scale up of nutrition interventions. He also developed a mapping tool to support provinces in the design of nutrition implementation plans.
Rafael was born and raised in Colombia where from
early on he developed a special connection to farming and rural development.
After obtaining his high-school degree, he moved to the U.S. to continue his
studies in agriculture and natural resource economics at the University of
Maryland in College Park. During his college years, Rafael designed an
inter-disciplinary curriculum taking classes in various subjects related to
agriculture. He also interned at the US Department of Agriculture and conducted
a research project in urban gardening in Maseru, Lesotho.
Rafael graduated with honors in May 2006 and
moved to Nicaragua to work with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO). FAO was promoting the use of school gardens to tackle food
insecurity and he was asked to assess the impact of such program. During six
months Rafael conducted a cost-benefit analysis, collecting data from more than
40 schools in Northern Nicaragua.
He returned to Washington D.C. to work for the
Intern American Development Bank as a research fellow in the Inter-American
Institute for Economic and Social Development (INDES). In this capacity, he
facilitated a series of workshops on socio-economic themes tailored to Latin
American leaders.
Looking for opportunities that could bring him
closer to the field, in 2009 Rafael started working for Fabretto Children’s
Foundation. Fabretto is an international NGO that offers hope and opportunity
to low income children from underserve rural and urban communities in
Nicaragua. He oversaw fundraising efforts in the U.S., preparing grant
proposals for government agencies, multilateral organizations, and corporate
and family foundations. During his three years at Fabretto, Rafael secured
several milestone grant awards, including a multi-million proposal from USDA
and Fabretto’s first grant from the World Bank’s Development Marketplace
Awards.
Throughout his academic and professional careers Rafael
has always been deeply passionate about food security and nutrition, not only
at a global perspective but also at an intimate level: He’s an avid gardener
with a small plot in a community garden. This hands-on approach to agriculture
reflects on his conviction that one must experience things to truly understand
them. And while gardening as a hobby is very different from a farmer growing
food to feed a family, Rafael’s experience has allowed him to understand what the
plight of millions of people in rural areas is and how to better respond to
their needs.
Blog's New Calendar
Hello
This is just a sample of the calendar now available for the blog. Here it be posting events related to agricultural and international development, politics of Latin America, and career advancing issues. Most of the events posted will take place in the Metropolitan Area of Washington DC, yet I'll make some exception.
To see the large version of the Calendar just follow this link CALENDAR, or you can click the forth link of the right bar.
I hope is useful
This is just a sample of the calendar now available for the blog. Here it be posting events related to agricultural and international development, politics of Latin America, and career advancing issues. Most of the events posted will take place in the Metropolitan Area of Washington DC, yet I'll make some exception.
To see the large version of the Calendar just follow this link CALENDAR, or you can click the forth link of the right bar.
I hope is useful
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Back in Washington
Hello faithful readers,
I’m very sorry it’s been so long since my last entry, but I haven’t, till now, find the energy to write a post. I gotta tell you that I had a lot of time in my hands, but I was in a no-agriculture mood, meaning no blogging. Now, as a wait for my computer to arrive, the energy came from somewhere, and it bothers me because I don’t know where. I’ve been waiting all mourning for the fricking UPS truck to arrive cause they didn’t give me any time estimate until I just fell asleep washing comedy central and CNN en espanol. All of the sudden, my new fancy unmanageable cell phone starts to vibrate in my pocket, thinking the guy on the other line is my dear friend from UPS waiting to tell me he is outside my doorstep, I rush to answer. “Hello??” no one was there. Ran outside, same traffic, not even one of the brown-awkward trucks you always see when not expecting a package. But then, I felt like writing. I try to call back whoever call me, but a answer machine reply. Not wasting any drop of this sudden energy stream, I turned on the computer ASAP, and here I am.
Ok, sorry for these nonsense and now let me tell you what’s been happening since I came back from Nicaragua two weeks ago.
First, pleasant weather. Sure, call it global warming but it is still pleasant here in the capital of the US and A (yes I finally saw Borat and laugh like I hadn’t done in a long time). I feel guilty for enjoying what will turn out to be a catastrophe for my grandsons and perhaps my sons and daughters. But coming out from the infernal heat of Managua, a not so drastic change in climate is sincerely appreciated.
A seven pound pile of mail, mostly rubbish, was waiting for me. It was neatly organized by my patient parents, who had manage to group the letters that seem important: verizon, American express, bank of America, geico, direct TV, t-mobile, and, say hi to the new member of payees, Fanny Mae. Yeah, although there is going to be prosecution to its top executives for their accounting creativity, that didn’t prevent them from sending me the first invoice to pay back my student loan. Back in school, I though they were grants won for my ethnic background, my exceptional need, and my surprising school performance. Well turns out they weren’t. But that ok, I hear of friends that came out of college with five digits loans, and my interest are not that bad. Yet, my group of payees is waiting for some immediate attention.
Attention that will probably be better attended with my new computer (if it comes) and a Quicken Software. That’s one of my new year resolution: to get better at personal finances. My old computer, the one that die in Nicaragua, will be sent to Dell for a out-of-guaranty maintenance…how cool is that. I think they realize that the same problem occurs in many of their computers so they felt sorry or something and will fix it for FREE!!. Sweet, two computer for my office.
Despite the carrots on the above pic, my lovely plot at the community is depressing. It feel weird because the weather is nice, like early fall, but all the plants are gone. They’re wilted, soggy, and brown, yet the sun is out an I feel comfortable wearing a shirt. But that’s ok. I think the ground needs a break. In the meantime I’m planning to bring more leave mulch to compost on top of the beds. I’m also getting from a nearby local stable some manure mix with straw to warm up the herb spiral and the celery…I been told some plant can survive the winter like that.
In terms of career I finally made the decision to wait until fall 08 to start a master program. I really like the field experience of Nicaragua, and more of it will create stronger foundations for a postgraduate study. In this regard I’ll be applying to a couple fellowships with international components. We’ll see.
So, in conclusion I’m happy to be back and share time with my family. Although there is one missing, their warm will keep me comfortable from the sure to come winter storms.
Write, email, comment. Is always good to know you’re out there.
Best,
Rafa
“Me gusta ir con el verano muy lejospara volver donde mi madre (y padre) en inviernoy ver los perros (y gatos) que jamás me olvidarony los abrazos que me dan mis hermanos (nas),
me gusta, me gusta”
Facundo Cabral no soy de aqui
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Ag Econ Papers
Hello,
Here are some articles. Click on read more to view them all.
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21731
MODELING THE EFFECT OF SPATIAL EXTERNALITIES ON INVASIVE SPECIES MANAGEMENT
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Gregory J. MCKEE; Rachael E. GOODHUE; James A. CHALFANT; Colin A. CARTER
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21732
Protecting the African Elephant: A Dynamic Bioeconomic Model of Ivory Trade
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
G. Cornelis VAN KOOTEN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21733
Multilateral reputation mechanisms and contract law in agriculture :
complement or substitutes
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Armelle Maze
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21734
The Wage Earnings Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Elton Mykerezi; Bradford F. Mills
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21735
Milk Marketing Order Winners and Losers
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Hayley H. Chouinard; David E. Davis; Jeffrey T. LaFrance; Jeffrey M. Perloff
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21736
An empirical model of optimal import phytosanitary inspection
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ilya V. Surkov; Alfons G.J.M. Oude Lansink; Olaf van Kooten
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21737
Estimating the Market Demand for Value-Added Beef: Testing for BSE
Announcement Effects Using a Nested PIGLOG Model Approach
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Steven S. VICKNER; DeeVon BAILEY; Al DUSTIN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21738
A Spatial Model of Dolphin Avoidance in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Rob Hicks; Kurt Schnier
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21739
Estimating Threshold Effects of Generic Fluid Milk and Cheese Advertising
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kenji ADACHI; Donald J. LIU
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21740
Adoption of E-Marketing by Direct Market Farms in the Northeastern U.S.
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Alexander G. Baer; Cheryl Brown
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21741
Disproving Causal Relationships Using Observational Data
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Henry L. Bryant; David A. Bessler; Michael S. Haigh
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21742
Decision Support System for Soybean Rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi)
Management using QnD
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Greg KIKER; Ram RANJAN
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21743
Modeling tariff rate quotas in the South African livestock industry
University of the Free State
Master's Degree Theses
2005
Olubukola Ayodeju OYEWUMI
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21744
Growth Expectations and Decision to Renovate a Golf Course: An
Application of a Censored Model with the Simultaneity Test
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Abdulbaki BILGIC; Wojciech J. FLORKOWSKI
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21745
On how environmental stringency influences BMP adoption
Selected Paper 156574
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Robert Johansson; Erdal Kara; Marc Ribaudo
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21746
The Relationship Between Economically and Environmentally Marginal Land
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
John Deal
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21747
Is Contract Farming More Profitable and Efficient Than Non-Contract
Farming-A Survey Study of Rice Farms In Taiwan
Selected Paper 156454
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ching-Cheng CHANG; Chi-Chung CHEN; Min-Ching Chin; Wei-Chun Tseng
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21748
Reserve Selection in the presence of Economic Feedback Effects
Selected Paper 150125
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kshama Harpankar
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21749
Beef Cattle Production and Management Practices and Implications for
Educators
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Mallory K. Vestal; Clement E. Ward; Damona G. Doye; David L. Lalman
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21750
Measuring market integration for apples on the South African fresh
produce market: a threshold error correction model
University of the Free State
Master's Degree Theses
2005
David Ifeanyi UCHEZUBA
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21751
An Economy-wide Analysis of Impacts of WTO Tiered Formula for Tariff
Reduction on Taiwan
Selected Paper 156405
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Shih-Hsun HSU; Ching-Cheng CHANG; Shu-Yuan Li; Yi-Chieh Chen
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21752
Cognitive Dissonance and Customer Allegiance in a Mixed Oligopoly
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Lampros LAMPRINAKIS; Murray E. FULTON
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21753
Welfare Effects of Bilateral Oligopoly in the U.S. Beef Packing
Industry: Price vs. Quantity Competition
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Debasmita Basu; Chanjin Chung
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21754
Increasing U.S. Hard Red Winter Wheat Competitiveness in Latin American
Markets
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Rosa K. Gallardo; Rodney B. Holcomb
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21755
Do Consumers Really Use Food Labels?
Selected Paper 156433
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ronald W. Ward; Carlos Jauregui
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21756
Uncertainty and Specific Investment with Weak Contract Enforcement
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Johan F.M. Swinnen; James Vercammen
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21757
Domestic Support Policies for Agriculture in Ecuador and the U.S.-Andean
Countries Free Trade Agreement: An Applied General Equilibrium Assessment
Selected Paper 156709
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Carlos LUDENA; Sara WONG
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21758
Contractual Externalities and Contract Design -Evidence from Farmland
Lease Contracts in U.S. Agriculture
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Keita Fukunaga; Brent Hueth
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21759
Quality of Life as an Explanation of the Divergence between Ranchers?
WTA and WTP for Public Forage
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Lili SUN; G. Cornelis VAN KOOTEN; Graham VOSS
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21760
Crop Production Using Variable Rate Technology for P&K in the United
States Midwest: Evaluation of Profitability
Selected Paper 155710
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yuliya Bolotova
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21762
The Degree of Decoupling of Direct Payments for Korea's Rice Industry
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yong-Kee Lee; Hanho Kim
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21764
Subsidization of the Biofuel Industry: Security vs. Clean Air?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Crina VIJU; William A. KERR; James NOLAN
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21765
Public Investment Policy in Life-Science Research
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Chenggang Wang; Yin Xia; Robbin Shoemaker; Steven Buccola
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21766
Productivity Before and After Exports: The Case of Korean Food
Processing Firms
Selected Paper 155702
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Munisamy Gopinath; Hanho Kim; Sooil Kim
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21767
Ethanol from Biomass: Economic and Environmental Potential of Converting
Corn Stover and Hardwood Forest Residue in Minnesota
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Daniel R. Petrolia
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21768
Welfare Effects of Technological Convergence in the Food Industries
Selected Paper 155503
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jun Ruan; Munisamy Gopinath; Steven Buccola
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21769
Optimal Market Contracting in the California Lettuce Industry
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kallie Donnelly; Jay E. Noel
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21770
Selection of Food Safety Standards
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Bo-Hyun Cho; Neal H. Hooker
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21771
Demand Elasticities for Fresh Fruit at the Retail Level
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Catherine Durham; James Eales
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21772
Economic Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program: A General
Equilibrium Framework
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Farzad Taheripour
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21773
Farm Financial Performance from Borrower and Lender Perspectives
Selected Paper 152015
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sena Durguner; Peter J. Barry; Ani L. Katchova
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21774
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES OF THE U.S. CONFECTIONERY
MANUFACTURERS: 2006 SURVEY PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Aslihan D. Spaulding
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21775
Avoiding biases from data-dependent specification search: an application
to a tillage choice model
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sanchita Sengupta; Lyubov Kurkalova; Catherine Kling
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21776
The Pollution Haven Hypothesis: Significance and Insignificance
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ryan KELLOGG
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21777
Credit Scoring Models: A Comparison between Crop and Livestock Farms
Selected Paper 151985
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Seda Durguner; Peter J. Barry; Ani L. Katchova
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21778
MFA Quotas Elimination: the Case of Cotton Yarn in Greece - a
Multi-Market vs. a Single Market Analysis
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Dimitrios Dadakas; Stelios Katranidis
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21779
How to Promote Quality Perception in Wine Markets: Brand Advertising or
Geographic Indication?
Selected Paper 156175
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Chengyan Yue; Stephan Marette; John C. Beghin
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21780
High value products or staple crops? A discussion on development
strategies for Southern Africa
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Alejandro Nin Pratt; Xinshen Diao
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21781
Factors Affecting Success for Women Entrepreneurs in West Africa: The
Case of Kossai, a Value Added Cowpea Product
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Germaine Ibro; Joan Fulton; James Lowenberg-DeBoer
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21782
Factors Affecting Crop Insurance Purchase Decisions in Northern Illinois
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Matthew G. Ginder; Aslihan D. Spaulding
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21783
Valuing Farm Financial Information
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Dana M. Marcellino; Christine A. Wilson
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21784
Pest Resistance Regulation and Pest Mobility
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Stefan Ambec; Marion Desquilbet
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21785
Do Interest Rates Explain Disaggregate Commodity Price Growth?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jason R.V. FRANKEN; Philip GARCIA; Scott H. IRWIN
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21786
Is it Feasible to Provide Genetically Modified Crops to Small Farmers on
Preferential Terms? : An Ex Ante Analysis of Bt Eggplant in India
Selected Paper 152787
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Deepthi Kolady; William Lesser
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21787
Estimating Threshold Effects of Generic Fluid Milk and Cheese Advertising
Staff Paper P06-8
University of Minnesota
Department of Applied Economics
2006
Kenji ADACHI; Donald J. LIU
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21789
FORCES RESHAPING WORLD AGRICULTURE
Agribusiness & Applied Economics Report No. 582
North Dakota State University
Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics
2006
Jeremy W. MATTSON; Won W. KOO
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21790
The Effect of Human and Financial Capital on the Entrepreneurial
Process: An Urban-Rural Comparison of Entrepreneurs in Indiana
Selected Paper 156923
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Maria I. Marshall; Ananya Samal
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21792
Economic impact of biofuel chains in France
Selected Paper 160125
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jean-Claude SOURIE; David TREGUER; Stelios ROZAKIS
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21793
Minnesota Farm Real Estate Sales: 1990-2005
Staff Paper P06-9
University of Minnesota
Department of Applied Economics
2006
Steven J. TAFF
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21795
Assessing the Impact of Stricter Food Safety Standards on Trade: HACCP
in U.S. Seafood Trade with the Developing World
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sven Anders; Julie A. Caswell
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21796
Animal Disease Related Pre-event Investment and Post-event Compensation:
A Multi-agent Problem
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yanhong Jin; Bruce McCarl
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21797
How distorting are direct payments?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Erik J. O'Donoghue; James Whitaker
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http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21798
Sino-U.S. and Sino-E.U. Textile Safeguard Agreements: Comparing the
Effects to Free Market Conditions
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Suwen Pan; Mark Welch; Samarendu Mohanty; Mohamadou Fadiga
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21799
Precision Nitrogen Fertilization Technology with Micro Grids
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jon Biermacher; Francis Epplin; Wade Brorsen; John Solie; Bill Raun
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21800
Determinants of U.S. Textile and Apparel Import Trade
Selected Paper 156824
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
William A. AMPONSAH; Victor OFORI-BOADU
Here are some articles. Click on read more to view them all.
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21731
MODELING THE EFFECT OF SPATIAL EXTERNALITIES ON INVASIVE SPECIES MANAGEMENT
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Gregory J. MCKEE; Rachael E. GOODHUE; James A. CHALFANT; Colin A. CARTER
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21732
Protecting the African Elephant: A Dynamic Bioeconomic Model of Ivory Trade
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
G. Cornelis VAN KOOTEN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21733
Multilateral reputation mechanisms and contract law in agriculture :
complement or substitutes
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Armelle Maze
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21734
The Wage Earnings Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Elton Mykerezi; Bradford F. Mills
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21735
Milk Marketing Order Winners and Losers
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Hayley H. Chouinard; David E. Davis; Jeffrey T. LaFrance; Jeffrey M. Perloff
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21736
An empirical model of optimal import phytosanitary inspection
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ilya V. Surkov; Alfons G.J.M. Oude Lansink; Olaf van Kooten
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21737
Estimating the Market Demand for Value-Added Beef: Testing for BSE
Announcement Effects Using a Nested PIGLOG Model Approach
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Steven S. VICKNER; DeeVon BAILEY; Al DUSTIN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21738
A Spatial Model of Dolphin Avoidance in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Rob Hicks; Kurt Schnier
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21739
Estimating Threshold Effects of Generic Fluid Milk and Cheese Advertising
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kenji ADACHI; Donald J. LIU
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21740
Adoption of E-Marketing by Direct Market Farms in the Northeastern U.S.
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Alexander G. Baer; Cheryl Brown
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21741
Disproving Causal Relationships Using Observational Data
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Henry L. Bryant; David A. Bessler; Michael S. Haigh
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21742
Decision Support System for Soybean Rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi)
Management using QnD
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Greg KIKER; Ram RANJAN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21743
Modeling tariff rate quotas in the South African livestock industry
University of the Free State
Master's Degree Theses
2005
Olubukola Ayodeju OYEWUMI
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21744
Growth Expectations and Decision to Renovate a Golf Course: An
Application of a Censored Model with the Simultaneity Test
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Abdulbaki BILGIC; Wojciech J. FLORKOWSKI
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21745
On how environmental stringency influences BMP adoption
Selected Paper 156574
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Robert Johansson; Erdal Kara; Marc Ribaudo
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21746
The Relationship Between Economically and Environmentally Marginal Land
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
John Deal
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21747
Is Contract Farming More Profitable and Efficient Than Non-Contract
Farming-A Survey Study of Rice Farms In Taiwan
Selected Paper 156454
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ching-Cheng CHANG; Chi-Chung CHEN; Min-Ching Chin; Wei-Chun Tseng
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21748
Reserve Selection in the presence of Economic Feedback Effects
Selected Paper 150125
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kshama Harpankar
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21749
Beef Cattle Production and Management Practices and Implications for
Educators
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Mallory K. Vestal; Clement E. Ward; Damona G. Doye; David L. Lalman
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21750
Measuring market integration for apples on the South African fresh
produce market: a threshold error correction model
University of the Free State
Master's Degree Theses
2005
David Ifeanyi UCHEZUBA
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21751
An Economy-wide Analysis of Impacts of WTO Tiered Formula for Tariff
Reduction on Taiwan
Selected Paper 156405
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Shih-Hsun HSU; Ching-Cheng CHANG; Shu-Yuan Li; Yi-Chieh Chen
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21752
Cognitive Dissonance and Customer Allegiance in a Mixed Oligopoly
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Lampros LAMPRINAKIS; Murray E. FULTON
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21753
Welfare Effects of Bilateral Oligopoly in the U.S. Beef Packing
Industry: Price vs. Quantity Competition
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Debasmita Basu; Chanjin Chung
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21754
Increasing U.S. Hard Red Winter Wheat Competitiveness in Latin American
Markets
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Rosa K. Gallardo; Rodney B. Holcomb
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21755
Do Consumers Really Use Food Labels?
Selected Paper 156433
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ronald W. Ward; Carlos Jauregui
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21756
Uncertainty and Specific Investment with Weak Contract Enforcement
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Johan F.M. Swinnen; James Vercammen
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21757
Domestic Support Policies for Agriculture in Ecuador and the U.S.-Andean
Countries Free Trade Agreement: An Applied General Equilibrium Assessment
Selected Paper 156709
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Carlos LUDENA; Sara WONG
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21758
Contractual Externalities and Contract Design -Evidence from Farmland
Lease Contracts in U.S. Agriculture
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Keita Fukunaga; Brent Hueth
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21759
Quality of Life as an Explanation of the Divergence between Ranchers?
WTA and WTP for Public Forage
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Lili SUN; G. Cornelis VAN KOOTEN; Graham VOSS
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21760
Crop Production Using Variable Rate Technology for P&K in the United
States Midwest: Evaluation of Profitability
Selected Paper 155710
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yuliya Bolotova
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21762
The Degree of Decoupling of Direct Payments for Korea's Rice Industry
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yong-Kee Lee; Hanho Kim
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21764
Subsidization of the Biofuel Industry: Security vs. Clean Air?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Crina VIJU; William A. KERR; James NOLAN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21765
Public Investment Policy in Life-Science Research
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Chenggang Wang; Yin Xia; Robbin Shoemaker; Steven Buccola
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21766
Productivity Before and After Exports: The Case of Korean Food
Processing Firms
Selected Paper 155702
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Munisamy Gopinath; Hanho Kim; Sooil Kim
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21767
Ethanol from Biomass: Economic and Environmental Potential of Converting
Corn Stover and Hardwood Forest Residue in Minnesota
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Daniel R. Petrolia
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21768
Welfare Effects of Technological Convergence in the Food Industries
Selected Paper 155503
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jun Ruan; Munisamy Gopinath; Steven Buccola
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21769
Optimal Market Contracting in the California Lettuce Industry
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Kallie Donnelly; Jay E. Noel
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21770
Selection of Food Safety Standards
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Bo-Hyun Cho; Neal H. Hooker
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21771
Demand Elasticities for Fresh Fruit at the Retail Level
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Catherine Durham; James Eales
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21772
Economic Impacts of the Conservation Reserve Program: A General
Equilibrium Framework
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Farzad Taheripour
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21773
Farm Financial Performance from Borrower and Lender Perspectives
Selected Paper 152015
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sena Durguner; Peter J. Barry; Ani L. Katchova
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21774
NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES OF THE U.S. CONFECTIONERY
MANUFACTURERS: 2006 SURVEY PRELIMINARY FINDINGS
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Aslihan D. Spaulding
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21775
Avoiding biases from data-dependent specification search: an application
to a tillage choice model
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sanchita Sengupta; Lyubov Kurkalova; Catherine Kling
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21776
The Pollution Haven Hypothesis: Significance and Insignificance
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Ryan KELLOGG
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21777
Credit Scoring Models: A Comparison between Crop and Livestock Farms
Selected Paper 151985
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Seda Durguner; Peter J. Barry; Ani L. Katchova
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21778
MFA Quotas Elimination: the Case of Cotton Yarn in Greece - a
Multi-Market vs. a Single Market Analysis
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Dimitrios Dadakas; Stelios Katranidis
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21779
How to Promote Quality Perception in Wine Markets: Brand Advertising or
Geographic Indication?
Selected Paper 156175
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Chengyan Yue; Stephan Marette; John C. Beghin
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21780
High value products or staple crops? A discussion on development
strategies for Southern Africa
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Alejandro Nin Pratt; Xinshen Diao
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21781
Factors Affecting Success for Women Entrepreneurs in West Africa: The
Case of Kossai, a Value Added Cowpea Product
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Germaine Ibro; Joan Fulton; James Lowenberg-DeBoer
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21782
Factors Affecting Crop Insurance Purchase Decisions in Northern Illinois
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Matthew G. Ginder; Aslihan D. Spaulding
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21783
Valuing Farm Financial Information
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Dana M. Marcellino; Christine A. Wilson
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21784
Pest Resistance Regulation and Pest Mobility
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Stefan Ambec; Marion Desquilbet
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21785
Do Interest Rates Explain Disaggregate Commodity Price Growth?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jason R.V. FRANKEN; Philip GARCIA; Scott H. IRWIN
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21786
Is it Feasible to Provide Genetically Modified Crops to Small Farmers on
Preferential Terms? : An Ex Ante Analysis of Bt Eggplant in India
Selected Paper 152787
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Deepthi Kolady; William Lesser
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21787
Estimating Threshold Effects of Generic Fluid Milk and Cheese Advertising
Staff Paper P06-8
University of Minnesota
Department of Applied Economics
2006
Kenji ADACHI; Donald J. LIU
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21789
FORCES RESHAPING WORLD AGRICULTURE
Agribusiness & Applied Economics Report No. 582
North Dakota State University
Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics
2006
Jeremy W. MATTSON; Won W. KOO
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21790
The Effect of Human and Financial Capital on the Entrepreneurial
Process: An Urban-Rural Comparison of Entrepreneurs in Indiana
Selected Paper 156923
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Maria I. Marshall; Ananya Samal
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21792
Economic impact of biofuel chains in France
Selected Paper 160125
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jean-Claude SOURIE; David TREGUER; Stelios ROZAKIS
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21793
Minnesota Farm Real Estate Sales: 1990-2005
Staff Paper P06-9
University of Minnesota
Department of Applied Economics
2006
Steven J. TAFF
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21795
Assessing the Impact of Stricter Food Safety Standards on Trade: HACCP
in U.S. Seafood Trade with the Developing World
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Sven Anders; Julie A. Caswell
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21796
Animal Disease Related Pre-event Investment and Post-event Compensation:
A Multi-agent Problem
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Yanhong Jin; Bruce McCarl
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21797
How distorting are direct payments?
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Erik J. O'Donoghue; James Whitaker
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21798
Sino-U.S. and Sino-E.U. Textile Safeguard Agreements: Comparing the
Effects to Free Market Conditions
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Suwen Pan; Mark Welch; Samarendu Mohanty; Mohamadou Fadiga
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21799
Precision Nitrogen Fertilization Technology with Micro Grids
Selected Paper
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
Jon Biermacher; Francis Epplin; Wade Brorsen; John Solie; Bill Raun
********************************************
http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_view.pl?paperid=21800
Determinants of U.S. Textile and Apparel Import Trade
Selected Paper 156824
American Agricultural Economics Association - 2006
2006 Annual Meeting, July 23-26, 2006, Long Beach, California
2006
William A. AMPONSAH; Victor OFORI-BOADU
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