Farm structure and optimal farm size have always attracted the interest of research as they constitute some of the intense problems of farm efficiency and farm income. Although several approached have been employed to handle with this problem a real options approach can significantly contribute on this matter. This article provides an empirical example of applying real options approach in inves...

There are many inputs into the dairy replacement herd which impact not only on the cost of rearing heifers from birth to first calving, but also on their future longevity and production potential. This study determined the current cost of rearing dairy heifers in the UK through the calculation and analysis of individual costs on a subset of 102 UK dairy farms. Each farm was visited and an exten...

A stochastic model describing disease transmission dynamics for a microparasitic infection in a structured domestic animal population is developed and applied to hypothetical epidemics on a pig farm. Rational decision making regarding appropriate control strategies for infectious diseases in domestic livestock requires an understanding of the disease dynamics and risk profiles for different gro...

Foot-and-mouth disease is one of the most contagious diseases of animal livestock. We used statistical tools to explore the dynamics of epidemics and to evaluate the consequences of virus reintroduction in France. We developed a stochastic farm-based model adapted to the French farm structure from previous modeling works following the 2001 epidemic in the United Kingdom. This model depends upon...

This paper tests whether structural change in US agriculture is an important channel to TFP growth and evaluates the relative impact of (i) public research and education policies, (ii) private R&D and market forces, and (iii) government farm programs on structural change. We specify a structural econometric model, fit it to US state aggregate data, 1953–1982, and use the associated reduced-form...

The economical situation at agricultural industry has been changed rapidly in Korea for the last 40 years. The population in farming area decreased sharply and the labor demand increased dramatically. The portion of the old and women has been increased. The farm size, and farm rural wage have been increased. Those were the driving forces of the mechanization in agricultural industry. The Agricu...

Aquaculture of the geoduck, Panopea generosaGould, 1850, has increased dramatically during the past decade in southern Puget Sound, WA, and the effects of these intertidal aquaculture geoduck beds on local fauna is mostly unknown. This study examined the species composition, relative abundances, and biodiversity indices of mobile benthic fauna in geoduck farm areas of southern Puget Sound. Surv...

With the continuing pressure on Australia’s water resources and interand intra-annual rainfall variability, farmers, especially in rainfed agricultural and pastoral zones, have been developing farm dams as a mean of providing additional water sources for irrigation and stock. The density of farm dams has increased over time, and an accurate knowledge of the spatial distribution of farm dams is ...