Farming is the basis of our civilization yet is more damaging to wild nature than any other sector of human activity. Here, we propose that in order to limit its impact into the future, conservation researchers and practitioners need to address several big topics--about the scale of future demand, about which crops and livestock to study, about whether low-yield or high-yield farming has the po...

Hedging is one of the most important risk management decisions that farmers make and has a potentially large role in the level of profit eventually earned from farming. Using panel data from a survey of Georgia farmers that recorded their hedging decisions for 4 years on four crops, we examine the role of habit, demographics, farm characteristics, and information sources on the hedging decision...

We use OLS and logistic regression to investigate variation in husband and wife perspectives on the division of authority over agriculture-related decisions within households in rural Tanzania. Using original data from husbands and wives (interviewed separately) in 1,851 Tanzanian households, the analysis examines differences in the wife's authority over 13 household and farming decisions. The ...

Herd optimization models that determine economically optimal insemination and replacement decisions are valuable research tools to study various aspects of farming systems. The aim of this study was to develop a herd optimization and simulation model for dairy cattle. The model determines economically optimal insemination and replacement decisions for individual cows and simulates whole-herd re...

In farming, the outcome of critical decisions to enhance productivity and profitability, and so ensure the viability of farming enterprises, is often influenced by seasonal conditions and weather events over the growing season. This paper reports on a project that uses cutting-edge advances in digital technologies, and their application in learning environments, to develop and evaluate a web-ba...

Farmers need information at all stages of the farming life cycle to make optimal decisions. The required information includes not only prior knowledge but also real time (dynamic) information such as market prices and current production levels. Some valuable information needed by the farmers is produced by government organizations and is available in different locations in different formats. Al...

In the future the Mallee is going to be hot and dry. Farming in the Mallee is going to be very profitable sometimes, middling profitable in some years and not profitable at all at times as has always been the case. In 10 years time there will be less Mallee farmers; they will be farming a little differently to now; and most will earn a good living. The scale of operations will be greater. The r...

In December, 2010, Canada's 6 year old Assisted Human Reproduction Act was successfully challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada. There may be important implications for public health and the evolution of reproductive technologies in this country.

Can the modern economy function without a market for interestbased credit? This question has acquired some urgency in the wake of the recent Shariat Court ruling banning interest in Pakistan. Some pundits have pronounced that great harm will result from the banning of interest. Actually, such pronouncements are based on a lack of understanding of both the modern economic system, as well as the ...

We assess the credit market impact of allowing mortgage “strip-down” as a foreclosureprevention measure, where strip-down reduces the principal of underwater residential mortgages to the current market value of the property for homeowners in Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our identification is provided by a series of U.S. court decisions that introduced strip-down in parts of the U.S. and a Supreme Cou...