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David Schimmelpfennig

USDA Economic Research Service, Structure, Technology, and Productivity, Faculty Member

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David Schimmelpfennig’s applied research on the agricultural industry evaluates technology solutions to farm problems, and national impacts of innovation on farm-sector productivity and efficiency. He has worked in South Africa and the United Kingdom, in addition to the U.S. His work produced 80 peer-reviewed publications, with 3,800 citations (listed on Google Scholar), covering agriculture in the U.S., E.U., South Africa and India. He has been awarded five competitive grants, has given 37 invited presentations, and has 50 conference papers. Over 70 articles in the popular press have covered his results and findings, largely in rural publications and outlets that appeal to farm producers.

He has leadership responsibility for the information technology questions on the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) (2008 – present), the most comprehensive farm production survey conducted by USDA, jointly administered with the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

He is an associate editor of the peer-reviewed journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (2013-2019).

His high profile work appears in National Geographic (June 15, 2014 and June 2018), the New York Times (Nov. 30, 2014), Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (2018), and Science (Nov. 2012).
Phone: 202-694-5507

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Papers by David Schimmelpfennig

Public-private collaboration in agricultural research : new institutional arrangements and economic implications

Iowa State University Press eBooks, 1999

External Increasing Returns, Short-Lived Agents and Long-Lived Waste

Social Science Research Network, 1990

External Increasing Returns, Short-lived Agents and Long-lived Waste Actions that affect environm... more External Increasing Returns, Short-lived Agents and Long-lived Waste Actions that affect environmental quality both influence and respond to macroeconomic variables. Further, many environmental and macroeconomic consequences of current actions will have uncompensated effects that outlive the actors. This paper presents an overlapping-generations model of environmental externalities and capital accumulation: consumption of the old generates long-lived garbage as a by-product, while young agents invest in both capital and destruction of the existing garbage stock. The model also assumes external increasing returns: increases in the capital stock increase the future productivity of capital. In the model, increases in the natural rate of degradation do, and improvements in society's ability to dispose of garbage may, encourage capital accumulation. Multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria can arise as a consequence of the interaction between garbage and capital accumulation. Underaccumulation of garbage, analogous to dynamically inefficient overaccumulation of capital, can arise in the model. The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered, and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into a countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art... They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius? J. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958) What stands between us and a decent environment is not the curse of industrialization, not an unbearable burden of cost, but just the need to organize ourselves consciously to do some simple and knowable things. Compared with the possibility of an active abatement policy, the policy of stopping economic growth in order to stop pollution would be incredibly inefficient. It would not actually accomplish much, because one really wants to reduce the amount of, say, hydrocarbon emission to a third or a half of what it is now. And what no-growth would accomplish, it would do by cutting off your face to spite your nose.

Estimating the Value of an Early-Warning System

Social Science Research Network, Jan 26, 2012

ABSTRACT An early-warning system generates economic value to the extent that it improves decision... more ABSTRACT An early-warning system generates economic value to the extent that it improves decision making. The value of the information hinges on the degree to which a timely response, aided by warnings, facilitates successful damage mitigation. USDA&#39;s Coordinated Framework for Soybean Rust includes a network of sentinel soybean plots and wild kudzu stands monitored by extension agents for the presence of soybean rust, a potentially recurring threat to the U.S. soybean crop since 2005. The linchpin in this early-warning system is a website that provides near real-time, county-level information on the location of the disease. We consider factors that may influence information value. Copyright 2009 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

India’s Agricultural Growth Propellers

Amber Waves, Apr 1, 2016

Since the 1980s, Indian agriculture has undergone a shift in production as farmers have planted l... more Since the 1980s, Indian agriculture has undergone a shift in production as farmers have planted less area to food grains and more to high-value crops. This shift coincides with strong economic growth, which has boosted incomes and, in turn, expanded consumer demand for higher valued foods, such as fruit, vegetables, milk, and some meat products. Yet, India's agricultural policies continue to follow a Green Revolution strategy developed to achieve grain self-sufficiency in the 1960s. That strategy focuses on investments in agricultural research, irrigation, transportation, and market infrastructure, and on output and PRINT PDF EMAIL

Climate variability and climate change: Implications for agriculture

Advances in the economics of environmental resources, May 19, 2004

ABSTRACT Crop yield variability is a defining characteristic of agriculture. Variations in yield ... more ABSTRACT Crop yield variability is a defining characteristic of agriculture. Variations in yield and production are strongly influenced by fluctuations in weather, both in terms of overall seasonal weather characteristics and extreme events. There has been substantial public policy interest concerning the consequences of the buildup of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere on long-term climate patterns and associated crop yield effects (Adams et al., 1990; Mendelsohn et al., 1994; Rosenzweig and Hillel, 1995; IPCC, 1996). Identification and predication of seasonal- to-inter annual climate phenomena like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has also brought attention to possible short-term impacts of climate changes on agriculture. A range of global crop yield effects have been attributed to ENSO and other ocean circulation patterns (Cane et al., 1994). These long and short term climatic phenomena are expected to alter the mean and variance of crop yields.Variability also arises because of the influence of changing production practices such as the introduction of new tools, new hybrids and varieties or cultivars, development of new diseases and pests, and government policy. While some feel that agricultural production is likely to become more variable because of climatic shifts (Mearns, et al., 1997) others argue variability is increasing because of increased use of fertilizer and other managed impacts (Roumasset et al., 1987; Tollini and Seagraves, 1970). Greater correlation between regional production in and between countries caused by standardization of varieties, adoption of common varieties, more uniform planting practices, and timing is also believed to contribute to greater variability in production.In this paper we present background on the variability issue, including a review of the physical and human dimensions of climate change as related to agricultural production. We also present the results of two recent empirical studies on climatic change and variability. We organize our discussion around three questions. 1. What Hypothesis Have Been Advanced about Climate Change and Variability? 2. Does Current Data on Yields Suggest Climate Change Will Increase Variability? 3. What Are the Economic Consequences of Extreme Events Becoming More Common? The exploration of these three questions draws on research and literature reviews from both the topic of long-term climate change and the issue of shorter term climatic variations as exemplified by ENSO-type events.2. Hypotheses Concerning Climate Change, Climatic Variability and Agriculture: Plant systems, and hence crop yields are influenced by many environmental factors, and these factors, such as moisture and temperature, may act either synergistically or antagonistically with other factors in determining yields (Waggoner, 1983). Plant scientists explore these effects on yields using two general approaches, controlled experiments and simulation models. Controlled field experiments can generate information on how the yield of a specific crop variety responds to a given stimulus, such as water or temperature. Such experiments are useful in isolating the influences of a specific factor. However, most quantitative estimates of climate change effects on crop yields are derived from crop simulation models (e.g., Rosenzweig and Parry, 1994) because climate change is likely to cut across a host of environmental factors. Plant scientists also use crop simulators to assess the influence of climate variability on the variability of yields (Riha et al., 1996). While the use of crop simulation models makes tractable the assessment of climate effects across a range of crops, such models are sensitive to the variability of weather conditions that affect production in the field. Thus, it is important to simulate how climate change will affect weather patterns in the field.A number of arguments have been made which relate climate change to changes in weather that agriculture is likely to face in the future.1 First, it has been argued that an increase in mean (maximum and/or minimum) temperature will increase the likelihood of extreme daily temperature events; i.e., a small change in mean temperature will produce a relatively large change in the probability of extremes occurring since the frequency of such events is nonlinear with the change in mean temperature (Mearns et al., 1984; Katz and Brown, 1992).Second, a number of simulations performed with General Circulation Models (GMC’s) show results where seasonal weather patterns change in selected regions or latitude bands. For example in the northern and mid-latitudes, the daily variance of temperature increases in summer, but tends to decrease in winter. In turn the frequency of extreme high temperature events rises due both to the mean shift in temperature and the greater variance. Simultaneously there are decreases in low extremes in winter due to warmer overall mean conditions and the decrease in variance (Meehl…

Introduction to the special issue on agricultural productivity growth: a closer look at large, developing countries

Journal of Productivity Analysis, Jan 19, 2010

Introduction: Overview of the Volume

Iowa State University Press eBooks, May 27, 2008

92. Precision agriculture adoption, farm size and soil variability

Nutrient Use and Precision Agriculture in Corn Production in the USA

Springer proceedings in business and economics, Oct 22, 2020

How firm characteristics influence innovative activity in agricultural biotechnology

CABI Publishing eBooks, 2004

The impact of seed industry concentration on innovation: a study of US biotech market leaders

Agricultural Economics, Mar 1, 2004

Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private ag... more Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private agricultural input firms has been declining. The empirical relationship between the number of firms doing applied biotechnology crop research and the amount of research output they produce is investigated in a research profit function model. Increases in seed industry concentration have reduced biotech research intensity in the United States in the 1990s. Concentration and research are simultaneously determined and are influenced by the appropriability of research results and the state of technological opportunity.

The emerging structure of the U.S. precision agriculture industry

The rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the United Kingdom: A causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion

by Paolo Palladino and David Schimmelpfennig

Agricultural Economics, 1998

This paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI... more This paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI), which was the most successful public plant breeding institute in the UK, until privatization in 1987. The PBI's shares in barley and wheat seed sales are explained, showing that the success with barley was largely a matter of serendipity, whereas the wheat programme followed a more normal pattern. For wheat, the causal chain, or recursive, model decomposes the well-documented link between research expenditures and increases in agricultural productivity into three stages. These are the effects of R&D expenditures on basic research output, measured by publications, the effect of publications and applied R&D expenditures on trial plot yields, and the diffusion of the trial plot technologies, which raises yields on farms. Applying the model to the FBI's wheat varieties allows estimation of the lag structures. In contrast to the results for aggregate agricultural research, for a single plant breeding programme alone there is a considerable lead time before there is any response, followed by a lag distribution only a few years long. The returns to the R&D investments are calculated from the causal chain model, from single equation estimates and by evaluating the yield advantage of the PBI varieties. All three approaches give consistent results, which show that the returns to barley and wheat alone were sufficient to support the entire PBI budget and still give rates of return to applied research of between 14 and 25%. The return to the basic science expenditures of the John Innes Institute has a lower bound of 17%, but must have been even higher than for the PBI if the other Institutes were taken into account. The paper concludes by commenting on the effects of the privatization of the PBI.

Improvements in on-farm resource stewardship with profitable information technologies in rice production

Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2019

Agricultural production can place burdens on natural environments. Profitable crop production pra... more Agricultural production can place burdens on natural environments. Profitable crop production practices can have unintended consequences on farm natural resources that are difficult to monitor. This article considers if precision agriculture's (PrecAg) information technologies can influence the rates, and profit implications, of using best management practices (BMPs) to improve on-farm natural resource stewardship. If PrecAg can increase rice yields with better management of inputs, reducing costs, and increasing profits, resource stewardship may also benefit. U.S. national farm-level production data from NASS (USDA), confirm background hypotheses of links between PrecAg use and BMPs. The main objective is then to test these relationships in a single, comprehensive, treatment effects model that accounts for PrecAg use, resource stewardship, and rice-farm costs and profits. Capital investments in equipment and other fixed costs are included as adoption control variables. The sustainable BMP rice production practices considered include conservation tillage and erosion control, nutrient-level monitoring, crop rotations, scouting for weeds and pests, and written planning. Conservation tillage is significant in the model and lowers costs with all three PrecAg technologies, but reduces profits. Erosion control has the reverse effect with all three PrecAg technologies having a significant and positive affect on costs, but also raises profit.

Crop Level Supply Response in South African I Agriculture: An Error Correction Approach

This article investigates South African supply response in agricultural production. It applies ti... more This article investigates South African supply response in agricultural production. It applies time series techniques to explain production planning decisions of the two dominant crops in the summer-rainfall grain area, maize and sorghum. After establishing the time series properties of the variables, cointegration is determined and used as the theoretical foundation for an error correction model (ECM). Maize area planted in the short run or the long run (or both), is found to depend on two sets of variables. One group changes the quantity or supply (area) of maize directly, like own price, the prices of substitutes like sorghum and sunflowers, and complementary intermediate input prices. The other variables change the supply environment, like rainfall, farmer education, R&D and cooperative extension. Sorghum is found to be a secondary crop dominated by expected changes in the maize variables, and the area planted depends simply on intermediate input prices and rainfall over both th...

Conservation Trends in Agriculture Reflect Policy, Technology, and Other Factors

The ERS report Agricultural Resource and Environment Indicators, 2019 provides a comprehensive so... more The ERS report Agricultural Resource and Environment Indicators, 2019 provides a comprehensive source of data and analysis on the factors that affect resource use and quality in American agriculture. These factors include the biophysical characteristics of the farm and landscape, policy options and incentives for conservation, and availability of technology and other inputs. For example, USDA conservation programs provide nearly $6 billion annually for financial and technical assistance to support the adoption of conservation practices on U.S. farms. One such program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), focuses its funding on five conservation practices—cover crops, conservation tillage/residue management, conservation crop rotation, terraces and nutrient management.

Introduction to the Economics of Animal and Plant Biosecurity

Advances in Human Services and Public Health, 2022

The economics of plant and animal health protection influence country policies through rapidly ev... more The economics of plant and animal health protection influence country policies through rapidly evolving benefit-cost tradeoffs that are difficult to forecast. Increased threat of infestation by invasive species following novel trade pathways is one recent trend, being counteracted by advances in data analytics to target interventions on higher risk pathways. The availability of increasingly large, complicated datasets generated from daily enforcement of regulations are available to safeguarding analysts. These data resources used to monitor and evaluate pathways are increasingly available electronically with shorter time lags. But the efficacy of increased analytic capabilities requires a clear objective of what is optimal. Economic frameworks can help focus the analytics. For example, increased protection that costs more than the benefit generated is not efficient. Economic theory provides a systematic method with which to develop policy or to assess existing programs. This chapter...

2004 | 188 Gouse, Pray, & Schimmelpfennig-The Distribution of Benefits from Bt Cotton Adoption in South Africa

Technology adoption can create income benefits for large and small-scale producers, input supplie... more Technology adoption can create income benefits for large and small-scale producers, input suppliers and consumers in developing countries. The circumstances under which this income creation can take place are shown to depend on a wide range of factors applicable across dualistic agricultural practices in South Africa. Whether for large commercial farms or small-scale agriculture , four factors influence the creation of surplus. World prices, subsidies in developed countries, domestic market structure , and the presence of substitute import markets each play a role in the distribution of rents from Bt cotton, an appropriate technology for South African farmers.

Have Seed Industry Changes Affected Research Effort?

U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth: The Past, Challenges, and the Future

The U.S. population has more than doubled in the last six decades, as has agricultural output. U.... more The U.S. population has more than doubled in the last six decades, as has agricultural output. U.S. agriculture now uses about 25 percent less farmland and 78 percent less labor than in 1948, so agricultural productivity is largely responsible for the increased production. Agricultural productivity can be defined in terms of total output per unit of a single inputpartial factor productivity (PFP) measures such as land productivity (yield) and labor PRINT PDF EMAIL

Public-private collaboration in agricultural research : new institutional arrangements and economic implications

Iowa State University Press eBooks, 1999

External Increasing Returns, Short-Lived Agents and Long-Lived Waste

Social Science Research Network, 1990

External Increasing Returns, Short-lived Agents and Long-lived Waste Actions that affect environm... more External Increasing Returns, Short-lived Agents and Long-lived Waste Actions that affect environmental quality both influence and respond to macroeconomic variables. Further, many environmental and macroeconomic consequences of current actions will have uncompensated effects that outlive the actors. This paper presents an overlapping-generations model of environmental externalities and capital accumulation: consumption of the old generates long-lived garbage as a by-product, while young agents invest in both capital and destruction of the existing garbage stock. The model also assumes external increasing returns: increases in the capital stock increase the future productivity of capital. In the model, increases in the natural rate of degradation do, and improvements in society's ability to dispose of garbage may, encourage capital accumulation. Multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria can arise as a consequence of the interaction between garbage and capital accumulation. Underaccumulation of garbage, analogous to dynamically inefficient overaccumulation of capital, can arise in the model. The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered, and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into a countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art... They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius? J. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958) What stands between us and a decent environment is not the curse of industrialization, not an unbearable burden of cost, but just the need to organize ourselves consciously to do some simple and knowable things. Compared with the possibility of an active abatement policy, the policy of stopping economic growth in order to stop pollution would be incredibly inefficient. It would not actually accomplish much, because one really wants to reduce the amount of, say, hydrocarbon emission to a third or a half of what it is now. And what no-growth would accomplish, it would do by cutting off your face to spite your nose.

Estimating the Value of an Early-Warning System

Social Science Research Network, Jan 26, 2012

ABSTRACT An early-warning system generates economic value to the extent that it improves decision... more ABSTRACT An early-warning system generates economic value to the extent that it improves decision making. The value of the information hinges on the degree to which a timely response, aided by warnings, facilitates successful damage mitigation. USDA&#39;s Coordinated Framework for Soybean Rust includes a network of sentinel soybean plots and wild kudzu stands monitored by extension agents for the presence of soybean rust, a potentially recurring threat to the U.S. soybean crop since 2005. The linchpin in this early-warning system is a website that provides near real-time, county-level information on the location of the disease. We consider factors that may influence information value. Copyright 2009 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

India’s Agricultural Growth Propellers

Amber Waves, Apr 1, 2016

Since the 1980s, Indian agriculture has undergone a shift in production as farmers have planted l... more Since the 1980s, Indian agriculture has undergone a shift in production as farmers have planted less area to food grains and more to high-value crops. This shift coincides with strong economic growth, which has boosted incomes and, in turn, expanded consumer demand for higher valued foods, such as fruit, vegetables, milk, and some meat products. Yet, India's agricultural policies continue to follow a Green Revolution strategy developed to achieve grain self-sufficiency in the 1960s. That strategy focuses on investments in agricultural research, irrigation, transportation, and market infrastructure, and on output and PRINT PDF EMAIL

Climate variability and climate change: Implications for agriculture

Advances in the economics of environmental resources, May 19, 2004

ABSTRACT Crop yield variability is a defining characteristic of agriculture. Variations in yield ... more ABSTRACT Crop yield variability is a defining characteristic of agriculture. Variations in yield and production are strongly influenced by fluctuations in weather, both in terms of overall seasonal weather characteristics and extreme events. There has been substantial public policy interest concerning the consequences of the buildup of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere on long-term climate patterns and associated crop yield effects (Adams et al., 1990; Mendelsohn et al., 1994; Rosenzweig and Hillel, 1995; IPCC, 1996). Identification and predication of seasonal- to-inter annual climate phenomena like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has also brought attention to possible short-term impacts of climate changes on agriculture. A range of global crop yield effects have been attributed to ENSO and other ocean circulation patterns (Cane et al., 1994). These long and short term climatic phenomena are expected to alter the mean and variance of crop yields.Variability also arises because of the influence of changing production practices such as the introduction of new tools, new hybrids and varieties or cultivars, development of new diseases and pests, and government policy. While some feel that agricultural production is likely to become more variable because of climatic shifts (Mearns, et al., 1997) others argue variability is increasing because of increased use of fertilizer and other managed impacts (Roumasset et al., 1987; Tollini and Seagraves, 1970). Greater correlation between regional production in and between countries caused by standardization of varieties, adoption of common varieties, more uniform planting practices, and timing is also believed to contribute to greater variability in production.In this paper we present background on the variability issue, including a review of the physical and human dimensions of climate change as related to agricultural production. We also present the results of two recent empirical studies on climatic change and variability. We organize our discussion around three questions. 1. What Hypothesis Have Been Advanced about Climate Change and Variability? 2. Does Current Data on Yields Suggest Climate Change Will Increase Variability? 3. What Are the Economic Consequences of Extreme Events Becoming More Common? The exploration of these three questions draws on research and literature reviews from both the topic of long-term climate change and the issue of shorter term climatic variations as exemplified by ENSO-type events.2. Hypotheses Concerning Climate Change, Climatic Variability and Agriculture: Plant systems, and hence crop yields are influenced by many environmental factors, and these factors, such as moisture and temperature, may act either synergistically or antagonistically with other factors in determining yields (Waggoner, 1983). Plant scientists explore these effects on yields using two general approaches, controlled experiments and simulation models. Controlled field experiments can generate information on how the yield of a specific crop variety responds to a given stimulus, such as water or temperature. Such experiments are useful in isolating the influences of a specific factor. However, most quantitative estimates of climate change effects on crop yields are derived from crop simulation models (e.g., Rosenzweig and Parry, 1994) because climate change is likely to cut across a host of environmental factors. Plant scientists also use crop simulators to assess the influence of climate variability on the variability of yields (Riha et al., 1996). While the use of crop simulation models makes tractable the assessment of climate effects across a range of crops, such models are sensitive to the variability of weather conditions that affect production in the field. Thus, it is important to simulate how climate change will affect weather patterns in the field.A number of arguments have been made which relate climate change to changes in weather that agriculture is likely to face in the future.1 First, it has been argued that an increase in mean (maximum and/or minimum) temperature will increase the likelihood of extreme daily temperature events; i.e., a small change in mean temperature will produce a relatively large change in the probability of extremes occurring since the frequency of such events is nonlinear with the change in mean temperature (Mearns et al., 1984; Katz and Brown, 1992).Second, a number of simulations performed with General Circulation Models (GMC’s) show results where seasonal weather patterns change in selected regions or latitude bands. For example in the northern and mid-latitudes, the daily variance of temperature increases in summer, but tends to decrease in winter. In turn the frequency of extreme high temperature events rises due both to the mean shift in temperature and the greater variance. Simultaneously there are decreases in low extremes in winter due to warmer overall mean conditions and the decrease in variance (Meehl…

Introduction to the special issue on agricultural productivity growth: a closer look at large, developing countries

Journal of Productivity Analysis, Jan 19, 2010

Introduction: Overview of the Volume

Iowa State University Press eBooks, May 27, 2008

92. Precision agriculture adoption, farm size and soil variability

Nutrient Use and Precision Agriculture in Corn Production in the USA

Springer proceedings in business and economics, Oct 22, 2020

How firm characteristics influence innovative activity in agricultural biotechnology

CABI Publishing eBooks, 2004

The impact of seed industry concentration on innovation: a study of US biotech market leaders

Agricultural Economics, Mar 1, 2004

Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private ag... more Agricultural research drives increases in agricultural productivity, and the number of private agricultural input firms has been declining. The empirical relationship between the number of firms doing applied biotechnology crop research and the amount of research output they produce is investigated in a research profit function model. Increases in seed industry concentration have reduced biotech research intensity in the United States in the 1990s. Concentration and research are simultaneously determined and are influenced by the appropriability of research results and the state of technological opportunity.

The emerging structure of the U.S. precision agriculture industry

The rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the United Kingdom: A causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion

by Paolo Palladino and David Schimmelpfennig

Agricultural Economics, 1998

This paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI... more This paper examines the barley and wheat breeding programmes of the Plant Breeding Institute (PBI), which was the most successful public plant breeding institute in the UK, until privatization in 1987. The PBI's shares in barley and wheat seed sales are explained, showing that the success with barley was largely a matter of serendipity, whereas the wheat programme followed a more normal pattern. For wheat, the causal chain, or recursive, model decomposes the well-documented link between research expenditures and increases in agricultural productivity into three stages. These are the effects of R&D expenditures on basic research output, measured by publications, the effect of publications and applied R&D expenditures on trial plot yields, and the diffusion of the trial plot technologies, which raises yields on farms. Applying the model to the FBI's wheat varieties allows estimation of the lag structures. In contrast to the results for aggregate agricultural research, for a single plant breeding programme alone there is a considerable lead time before there is any response, followed by a lag distribution only a few years long. The returns to the R&D investments are calculated from the causal chain model, from single equation estimates and by evaluating the yield advantage of the PBI varieties. All three approaches give consistent results, which show that the returns to barley and wheat alone were sufficient to support the entire PBI budget and still give rates of return to applied research of between 14 and 25%. The return to the basic science expenditures of the John Innes Institute has a lower bound of 17%, but must have been even higher than for the PBI if the other Institutes were taken into account. The paper concludes by commenting on the effects of the privatization of the PBI.

Improvements in on-farm resource stewardship with profitable information technologies in rice production

Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2019

Agricultural production can place burdens on natural environments. Profitable crop production pra... more Agricultural production can place burdens on natural environments. Profitable crop production practices can have unintended consequences on farm natural resources that are difficult to monitor. This article considers if precision agriculture's (PrecAg) information technologies can influence the rates, and profit implications, of using best management practices (BMPs) to improve on-farm natural resource stewardship. If PrecAg can increase rice yields with better management of inputs, reducing costs, and increasing profits, resource stewardship may also benefit. U.S. national farm-level production data from NASS (USDA), confirm background hypotheses of links between PrecAg use and BMPs. The main objective is then to test these relationships in a single, comprehensive, treatment effects model that accounts for PrecAg use, resource stewardship, and rice-farm costs and profits. Capital investments in equipment and other fixed costs are included as adoption control variables. The sustainable BMP rice production practices considered include conservation tillage and erosion control, nutrient-level monitoring, crop rotations, scouting for weeds and pests, and written planning. Conservation tillage is significant in the model and lowers costs with all three PrecAg technologies, but reduces profits. Erosion control has the reverse effect with all three PrecAg technologies having a significant and positive affect on costs, but also raises profit.

Crop Level Supply Response in South African I Agriculture: An Error Correction Approach

This article investigates South African supply response in agricultural production. It applies ti... more This article investigates South African supply response in agricultural production. It applies time series techniques to explain production planning decisions of the two dominant crops in the summer-rainfall grain area, maize and sorghum. After establishing the time series properties of the variables, cointegration is determined and used as the theoretical foundation for an error correction model (ECM). Maize area planted in the short run or the long run (or both), is found to depend on two sets of variables. One group changes the quantity or supply (area) of maize directly, like own price, the prices of substitutes like sorghum and sunflowers, and complementary intermediate input prices. The other variables change the supply environment, like rainfall, farmer education, R&D and cooperative extension. Sorghum is found to be a secondary crop dominated by expected changes in the maize variables, and the area planted depends simply on intermediate input prices and rainfall over both th...

Conservation Trends in Agriculture Reflect Policy, Technology, and Other Factors

The ERS report Agricultural Resource and Environment Indicators, 2019 provides a comprehensive so... more The ERS report Agricultural Resource and Environment Indicators, 2019 provides a comprehensive source of data and analysis on the factors that affect resource use and quality in American agriculture. These factors include the biophysical characteristics of the farm and landscape, policy options and incentives for conservation, and availability of technology and other inputs. For example, USDA conservation programs provide nearly $6 billion annually for financial and technical assistance to support the adoption of conservation practices on U.S. farms. One such program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), focuses its funding on five conservation practices—cover crops, conservation tillage/residue management, conservation crop rotation, terraces and nutrient management.

Introduction to the Economics of Animal and Plant Biosecurity

Advances in Human Services and Public Health, 2022

The economics of plant and animal health protection influence country policies through rapidly ev... more The economics of plant and animal health protection influence country policies through rapidly evolving benefit-cost tradeoffs that are difficult to forecast. Increased threat of infestation by invasive species following novel trade pathways is one recent trend, being counteracted by advances in data analytics to target interventions on higher risk pathways. The availability of increasingly large, complicated datasets generated from daily enforcement of regulations are available to safeguarding analysts. These data resources used to monitor and evaluate pathways are increasingly available electronically with shorter time lags. But the efficacy of increased analytic capabilities requires a clear objective of what is optimal. Economic frameworks can help focus the analytics. For example, increased protection that costs more than the benefit generated is not efficient. Economic theory provides a systematic method with which to develop policy or to assess existing programs. This chapter...

2004 | 188 Gouse, Pray, & Schimmelpfennig-The Distribution of Benefits from Bt Cotton Adoption in South Africa

Technology adoption can create income benefits for large and small-scale producers, input supplie... more Technology adoption can create income benefits for large and small-scale producers, input suppliers and consumers in developing countries. The circumstances under which this income creation can take place are shown to depend on a wide range of factors applicable across dualistic agricultural practices in South Africa. Whether for large commercial farms or small-scale agriculture , four factors influence the creation of surplus. World prices, subsidies in developed countries, domestic market structure , and the presence of substitute import markets each play a role in the distribution of rents from Bt cotton, an appropriate technology for South African farmers.

Have Seed Industry Changes Affected Research Effort?

U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth: The Past, Challenges, and the Future

The U.S. population has more than doubled in the last six decades, as has agricultural output. U.... more The U.S. population has more than doubled in the last six decades, as has agricultural output. U.S. agriculture now uses about 25 percent less farmland and 78 percent less labor than in 1948, so agricultural productivity is largely responsible for the increased production. Agricultural productivity can be defined in terms of total output per unit of a single inputpartial factor productivity (PFP) measures such as land productivity (yield) and labor PRINT PDF EMAIL