With the industrialization that has been occurring in the agricultural sector, various agricultural commodity interests are increasingly recognizing the need for an organization for marketing. Once formed, commodity organizations commonly wish to develop markets for their product but likely lack the expertise to evaluate alternatives open to their organization for market development. In addition, no comprehensive statement of the market development concept has appeared in the literature. This situation lends impetus to the need for a definition and description of market development along with the alternatives which may exist for various marketing institutions.

In order to estimate demand elasticities of source differentiated beef in South Korea, this study used the quantity of an endogenous demand system derived through maximizing the economic welfare of market participants including local beef consumers and local and foreign beef suppliers. The demand system is then weighted with respect to quality adjustment parameters to identify the effects of quality differences in source differentiated beef on market demand. As implied by the high relative price of locally produced “Hanwoo” beef, substitutability between local and imported beef is shown to be very weak and the own price elasticity of South Korean beef is shown to be inelastic. Related to quality differences between source differentiated beef, South Korean beef consumers show a preference for Australian beef relative to U.S. and Canadian beef, perhaps due to BSE concerns.

Typically, marketers define market segments by their demographic characteristics, assuming that these segments represent consumers with relatively homogeneous buying patterns. A more managerially useful definition, however, groups consumers of similar behavior directly and then seeks to find demographic commonalities among them. This study uses a latent class analysis technique to segment consumers based on their responsiveness to a set of marketing variables, finding that a multiple-segment model provides a better fit to the data, and that these segments differ significantly in their responsiveness. By targeting marketing activities to their most responsive segments, the efficiency of commodity promotion can be dramatically improved.

Researchers as well as planners have been concerned with the impact of augmenting an existing recreation system with new recreational areas. That is, they are concerned with the substitution or duplication of services stemming from additional numbers of recreational areas.

During the last two decades, the feeder pig industry in Virginia has undergone significant growth in the number of pigs sold and in the value of total sales, along with improvement in marketing procedures. From 1959 to 1978, the number of feeder pigs sold in state-sponsored auctions increased from 2,195 to more than 150,000 per year (Virginia Department of Agriculture). Tele-Auction sales, conducted by the Virginia Feeder Kg Association, use a conference telephone system that allows distant buyers to bid for pigs described by lot size, grade, weight, and tail docking. Pigs from various producers are co-mingled into lots that are homogeneous with respect to these characteristics. The Tele-Auction system permits out-of-state buyers to participate easily in sales, thus increasing the demand for Virginia's feeder pigs. In 1979, the Association sponsored 128 sales at 8 locations.

In past decades, agricultural policy was always thought of as policy toward farmers who produce our food and fiber or other rural people who depend on farmers for their livelihood. Accordingly, past policies were translated into programs of research, education, electrification, price supports, and related commodity programs.

After a time, it was realized that many farmers did not benefit from price and income programs in particular. They lacked the resources to enter the commercial market through which price programs operated. It was decided that the problems facing these people called for credit and other special programs to help them graduate into the commercial field.

Do cost considerations justify the current structure of production of extension services in which one or more providers exists in virtually all of the contiguous U.S. states? Provision of extension services has sizable cost implications for the host institutions. Yet, to our knowledge, there has been virtually no analysis of the impact of extension on higher education costs. Using academic year 1995–1996 data, we estimate a multiproduct cost function for 1,445 public institutions of higher education in the United States, including 65 that provide extension services. We find evidence of significant economies of scale with respect to the provision of extension services but no evidence of significant economies of scope between the provision of extension and the production of research, undergraduate education, or graduate education.

This paper traces the economic impact of the costs of foodborne illness on the U.S. economy using a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) framework. Previous estimates of the costs of seven foodborne pathogens are disaggregated by type, and distributed across the population using data from the National Health Interview Survey. Initial income losses resulting from premature death cause a decrease in economic activity. Medical costs, in contrast, result in economic growth, though this growth does not outweigh the total costs of premature death. A SAM accounting of how the costs of illness are diffused through the economy provides useful information for policy makers.

The economic distortions that have been caused by federal regulation of natural gas markets have been the subject of many recent studies (Committee for Economic Development [CED]; Brickhill; Hall; MacAvoy and Pindyck; and Means). The most recent policy debate concerns the relative merits of alternatives to the price deregulation schedule of the 1978 Natural Gas Policy Act (NGPA). The range of options runs from freezing natural gas prices at current levels to complete decontrol of natural gas prices by January 1, 1986. Producers of natural gas, pipelines, distribution utilities, and end users all suffer from some sort of economic distortion under the NGPA (CED, pp. 50-60).

Economic events since the 1972–73 crop year have generated much interest in cottonseed prices. Cotton producers, observing a doubling of wholesale prices of cottonseed oil and meal during the last three years, have wondered whether they are getting an equitable share of this increased income. They have largely stopped thinking of their cottonseed as merely a means of payment for ginning charges and have begun to regard it as a potential source of supplementary income.

The limited objective of this paper is to examine, by regions, the wholesale marketing margin for cottonseed during the crop years of 1958–1973 in order to (1) more clearly determine how the marketing margin has behaved and (2) discover differences, if any, among regional marketing margins.

The USDA's Food Stamp Program (FSP) is a major item in the department's budget. In effect from 1939 to 1943 and revived as a pilot program in 1961, FSP has grown until, in 1973, it provided nearly $4 billion in food stamps to an average of 12 million persons per month. About 55 percent of the $4 billion is federal subsidy. The program is continuing to expand as a result of a congressional mandate that FSP be in effect nationwide after June 30, 1974. Because of the FSP's growth, questions are now being asked about the program's impact on demand for food in the United States.

In its pre-World War II inception, FSP was developed as an alternative to direct distribution of commodities to relief families. Although the objective of improving food consumption among needy households was recognized, FSP was viewed primarily as a method for stimulating demand for farm products.

The supply of poultry meat is being augmented by hundreds of millions of pounds annually at little economic cost and no increase in the output of chickens or turkeys. The food-processing innovation responsible for boosting the utilization efficiency of our scarce food protein resources is mechanical deboning, a technique that separates the remaining meat from bones destined to be rendered into inedible products. The potential gains to society from further widespread adoption of this technology could be enormous. Therefore, it is important to have a clear understanding of the factors that affect the market supply response to this technology, as well as the impact of additional regulations governing its use.

Concern over the effects of public policies based on misspecified econometric models motivates interest in a procedure to test, diagnose, and improve the specification of models that have been estimated with three-stage least squares. A test of system-wide specification based on Hausman's specification test is employed in a test of the a priori restrictions placed on the parameters of a structural model of the U.S. shrimp market. The null hypothesis of proper specification is rejected. After diagnosis via a comparison of unrestricted and restricted reduced forms and respecification, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected.

ICEASE (Irrigation Cost Estimator and System Evaluator) is a microcomputer model designed and developed to meet the need for conducting economic evaluation of adjustments to irrigation systems and management techniques to improve the use of irrigated water. ICEASE can calculate the annual operating costs for irrigation systems and has five options that can be used to economically evaluate improvements in the pumping plant or the way the irrigation system is used for crop production.

The Agricultural Risk Management Simulator (ARMS) is a microcomputer program designed to help users evaluate strategies for managing yield and price risk in crop farming operations. Risk management strategies are defined by choices regarding crop mix, the purchase of multiple peril crop insurance, and the use of forward contracting. Probabilistic budgeting is used to determine the net cash flow probability distribution for each strategy considered. Flexibility with regard to both sources of probabilistic information and the form of yield and price probability distributions is a noteworthy feature of the program.

In an excellent analysis, Dr. Ghebremedhin discusses the impacts of technological changes on “small versus large farms, public costs in rural communities, and the future direction of research needs.” I cannot but wholeheartedly agree with some of his conclusions; e.g., that “technology has increased agricultural productivity and created new jobs, but it has also displaced persons from their occupations and livelihood.”

Biogas created from anaerobic digestion on dairy farms can be used to generate electricity, produce coproducts, and reduce reliance on off-farm inputs. We incorporate risk into simulation models representing dairy farms in Texas and demonstrate the profitability of new anaerobic digester installation. Based on this market, results indicate projects that have low investment costs, receive grant support for construction, utilize coproducts, or have some combination of these factors have higher net present value at the end of the study period; however, even with generous grant support and high electricity prices, projects with average investment costs remain unprofitable.

Attention is now focused upon problems confronting our Nation in the area of environmental pollution. There is a close correlation between industrial and agricultural expansion and increases in population over the last few decades. There is also a pronounced association between increases in population and the magnitude of pollution problems. As an example, there is some concern about environmental pollution associated with power production which is rapidly expanding to meet the demands for electricity of an increasing population and industrial complex. Power production expansion is occurring largely in areas which already have high population densities.