This paper applies two-stage stochastic quadratic programming to optimize conjunctive use operations of groundwater pumping and artificial recharge with farmer’s expected revenue and cropping decisions. The two-stage programming approach allows modeling of water and permanent crop production decisions, with recourse for uncertain conditions of hydrology, annual crops, and irrigation technology ...

Agricultural production is not keeping up with the world demand for food because the human population is increasing faster than agriculture’s food production capability (Pimentel et al., 1999). Uneven distribution of food, the inability of the poor to purchase food, and political unrest also threaten world food security for human society. Currently, more than 3 billion humans worldwide are maln...

Among the numerous non-point sources of diffuse water pollution with nitrogen, agriculture is counted one of the main sources. The agricultural policies of the Agenda 2000 and a decoupling of direct payments for farmers from their production decisions are exemplarily evaluated as nitrogen reduction measures using the Regional Agricultural and Environmental Information System RAUMIS. The results...

During the last quarter century, China’s agricultural sector has undergone a dramatic transformation from collective to private production under the so-called “Household Responsibility System.” This incentive system, designed to increase yields, reallocated communal land to peasant households, creating hundreds of millions of smallholders with relative autonomy over land use decisions and crop ...

Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields...

The recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform of the financial support mechanism for farms was introduced in 2005. According to this reform, the level of support that each farm receives is paid regardless of the current level of production. The decoupling of direct payments is expected to change production decisions, as farmers will change their mainly subsidy revenue maximization objectiv...

Does Off-Farm Labor Relax Farmers’ Credit Constraints? Evidence from Longitudinal Data for Vietnam We examine the relationship between participation in non-agricultural labor activities and farming production decisions, focusing on the use of inputs. In particular, we are interested in the hypothesis that income from non-agricultural labor relaxes credit constraints. Using longitudinal data for...

There are relatively few Federal environmental regulations that influence agricultural production in the US. However, many local and state environmental rules may influence the management practices on US farms as might interactions between urban population centers and agricultural producers. Detailed analysis of corn farms gives insight into these relationships and suggests that stringent envir...