The commodity markets have been bidding for acreage due to bio-fuels creating new markets for corn and soybeans. This demand-driven market may continue to provide marketing opportunities for 2008-2010. Currently, the major decision facing producers is determining the enterprise mix for 2008. This memo compares the Returns over Variable Costs for corn and cotton and analyzes the break-even yield...

Background In the early 20 century, California produced only little lettuce . For 1909, Knott and Tavernetti [4] reported that lettuce was produced on 595 acres in California, which corresponded to 11% of the total U.S. acreage. Lettuce production increased dramatically in the 1920s (Figure 1). While 6,100 acres were harvested in 1919 , the harvested area reached 112,000 acres by 1930 . The mar...

In India, expenditure on electricity subsidies for agriculture, an input subsidy aimed at improving agricultural productivity and the incomes of the agricultural work force, exceeds that spent on health or education. Yet the benefits and beneficiaries of these policies have been unexplored. This paper develops and empirically tests a model that describes the channels through which these subsidi...

Climate change induced alterations from historical patterns of precipitation, temperature, and atmospheric gases as well as increases in the frequency of extreme events is leading to alterations in global cereal production and its spatial distribution. Using a US agricultural sector model, we examine effects and acreage adaptation with an emphasis on wheat and the Pacific Northwest region. Use ...

Image classifications, including sub-pixel analysis, are often used to estimate crop acreage directly. However, this type of assessment often leads to a biased estimation, because commission and omission errors generally do not compensate for each other. Regression estimators combine remote sensing information with more accurate ground data on a field sample, and can result in more accurate and...