SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L.; Zhao, Jinhua.

Due to payoff uncertainties combined with risk aversion and/or real options, farmers may demand a premium in order to adopt conservation tillage practices, over and above the compensation for the expected profit losses (if any). We propose a method of directly estimating the financial incentives for adopting conservation tillage and distinguishing between the expected payoff and the premium of adoption based on observed behavior. We find that the premium may play a significant role in farmers' adoption decisions. Even for non-adopters, conservation tillage provides a higher payoff than does conventional tillage on average, as agronomists have argued. However, non-adopters do not use conservation tillage because the expected profit gain alone does not fully...

MULTIPLE BENEFITS OF CARBON-FRIENDLY AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES: EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT OF CONSERVATION TILLAGE

Palavras-chave: Land Economics/Use.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/20542

Kling, Catherine L.; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Zhao, Jinhua.

In this study, we estimate empirically the multiple benefits of a subsidy policy that would offer payments to farmers in return for the adoption of conservation tillage and compare the outcomes of alternative targeting designs for such a policy. Using data for roughly 12,000 National Resource Inventory (NRI) points, we simulate for the state of Iowa the least-cost policy schemes for offering payment incentives. We use an economic model of conservation tillage adoption to evaluate the costs of adoption, and we use a model that simulates physical processes (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate, or EPIC) to estimate the environmental benefits of adoption at each of the NRI points. We assess the costs and environmental consequences of two targeting...

Conservation Payments: Challenges in Design and Implementation

Palavras-chave: Conservation tillage; Multiple benefits; Subsidy policy; Targeting; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18470

Babcock, Bruce A.; Beghin, John C.; Duffy, Michael D.; Feng, Hongli; Hueth, Brent; Kling, Catherine L.; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Schneider, Uwe A.; Secchi, Silvia; Weninger, Quinn; Zhao, Jinhua.

As Congress develops new farm legislation, some are lobbying for a new partnership between U.S. taxpayers and farmers. In exchange for an annual transfer of $10 to $20 billion from taxpayers to agriculture, farmers would do much more to enhance environmental quality. An attractive feature of a new partnership is that paying for an improved environment provides a clear and justifiable rationale for farm program payments, something that is lacking under current farm programs. By changing management practices and land use, farmers can provide cleaner water, cleaner air, better wildlife habitat, lower net greenhouse gas emissions, and improved long-run soil quality. Private profit maximizers largely ignore the value of these environmental goods. Hence, the...

Empirical Assessment of Baseline Conservation Tillage Adoption Rates and Soil Carbon Sequestration in the Upper Mississippi River Basin

Palavras-chave: Land Economics/Use; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2001

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/36920

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L..

The study proposes a methodology for developing a carbon sequestration baseline attributable to the current use of conservation tillage. An integral component of the methodology is the explicit acknowledgment that there is an uncertainty in the baseline because of the uncertainty associated with the use of econometrically estimated models. The results of applying the method to a major crop production area, the Upper Mississippi River Basin in the central United States, are reported for two major crops in the region, corn and soybeans. The approach to estimation of the baseline should be readily transferable to other geographic areas and conservation practices.

AGRICULTURAL HOUSEHOLD MODEL WITH WAGE UNCERTAINTY: AN APPLICATION TO SUBSIDIARY POST-SOVIET AGRICULTURE

Palavras-chave: Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21169

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Jensen, Helen H..

The labor supply decision under wage uncertainty is studied in the context of an agricultural household model. The recent sharp growth of post-Soviet subsidiary subsistence agriculture is consistent with the model predictions of an increase in farm labor supply in response to the fall and uncertainty in real wage.

Land-Use Implications of the Changes in Energy Prices

Palavras-chave: Consumer/Household Economics; Labor and Human Capital.

Ano: 1999

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21527

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Randall, Stephen; Secchi, Silvia.

CROPLAND CASH RENTAL RATES IN THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER BASIN

Palavras-chave: Land Economics/Use; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2010

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/61659

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Burkart, Christopher; Secchi, Silvia.

The report documents the creation of estimates for cropland cash rental rates in the Upper Mississippi River Basin in 1997. Although the basic data come from disparate sources, we employ a unifying estimation procedure based on the presumption that the cropland cash rental rate is an increasing function of corn yield potential. The rates are estimated at some 42,000 National Resources Inventory data points representing cropland in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Alternative Green Payment Policies When Multiple Benefits Matter

Palavras-chave: Cropland cash rental rates; Land retirement; Upper Mississippi River Basin; Land Economics/Use.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18652

Zhao, Jinhua; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L..

This study investigates the environmental impacts of several forms of policies that offer farmers subsides in return for the adoption of conservation tillage. The policies differ as to whether the tillage practice or one of several environmental benefits is targeted. We develop an Environmental Lorenz Curve which fully represents the performance of the targeting policies, and show that this curve can be directly used to help select the optimal targeting strategy for special classes of social welfare functions. The model is applied to the state of Iowa.

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/31378

The Designation of Co-benefits and Its Implication for Policy: Water Quality versus Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils

Secchi, Silvia; Jha, Manoj K.; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Feng, Hongli; Gassman, Philip W.; Kling, Catherine L..

This study investigates the implications of treating different environmental benefits as the primary target of policy design. We focus on two scenarios, estimating for both of them in-stream sediment, nutrient loadings, and carbon sequestration. In the first, we assess the impact of a program designed to improve water quality in Iowa on carbon sequestration, and in the second, we calculate the water quality impact of a program aimed at maximizing carbon sequestration. In both cases, the policy instrument is the retirement of land from agricultural production. Our results, limited to the state of Iowa, and to the case of set-aside for water quality or carbon sequestration purposes, indicate that the amount of co-benefits depends on what indicators are used...

Bayesian Estimation of Technical Efficiency of a Single Input

Palavras-chave: Carbon sequestration; Co-benefits; Environmental benefits targeting; Iowa; Land set-aside; Water quality; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18353

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Carriquiry, Alicia L..

We propose estimation of a stochastic production frontier model within a Bayesian framework to obtain the posterior distribution of single-input-oriented technical efficiency at the firm level. The proposed method is applicable to the estimation of environmental efficiency of agricultural production when the technology interaction with the environment is modeled via public inputs such as soil quality and environmental conditions. All computations are carried out using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. We illustrate the approach by applying it to production data from Ukrainian collective farms.

Estimation of a Binary Choice Model with Grouped Choice Data

Palavras-chave: Stochastic production frontier; Bayesian estimation; Input efficiency; Environmental efficiency; Crop Production/Industries.

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18545

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Rabotyagov, Sergey S..

We propose an econometric technique for estimating the parameters of a binary choice model when only aggregated data are available on the choices made. The method performs favorably in applications to both simulated and real world choice data.

GREEN SUBSIDIES IN AGRICULTURE: ESTIMATING THE ADOPTION COSTS OF CONSERVATION TILLAGE FROM OBSERVED BEHAVIOR

Palavras-chave: Research Methods/ Statistical Methods.

Ano: 2005

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18495

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L.; Zhao, Jinhua.

Because of payoff uncertainties combined with risk aversion and/or real options, farmers may demand a premium in order to adopt conservation tillage practices, over and above the compensation for the expected profit losses (if any). We propose a method of directly estimating the financial incentives for adopting conservation tillage and distinguishing between the expected payoff and premium of adoption based on observed behavior. We find that the premium may play a significant role in farmers' adoption decisions.

INSTITUTIONS AND THE VALUE OF NONPOINT SOURCE MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY: CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN AGRICULTURAL SOILS

Palavras-chave: Adoption subsidies; Conservation Security Program (CSP); Conservation tillage; Risk premium; Environmental Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18517

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L.; Zhao, Jinhua.

The development of technologies for accurate field-scale carbon assessment allows the implementation of more efficient policies than can be implemented in their absence. We estimate the value of accurate measurement technology by estimating the gains from implementing a more efficient policy, one that targets carbon reductions at the field scale but requires accurate field-scale measurement technology, relative to a practice-based policy that can be implemented in the absence of such technology. We find large cost savings due to improved targeting of conservation tillage subsidies for the state of Iowa. The cost savings depend significantly on the choice of baseline carbon, while the ability of the government to cost discriminate has little impact on the...

Technical Efficiency of Grain Production in Ukraine

Palavras-chave: Carbon sequestration; Green payment policy; Value of measurement technology; Environmental Economics and Policy; Institutional and Behavioral Economics.

Ano: 2003

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18540

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Jensen, Helen H..

A stochastic production frontier model with technical inefficiency effects is estimated on a representative sample of Ukrainian state and collective grain-producing farms. Technical efficiency declined from 1989 to 1992. More experienced managers were found to be more productive, with the effect of experience diminishing with age. We found that on-farm provision of production infrastructure was associated with higher efficiency, a result supporting the hypothesis that disorganization causes output to decline in transition economies.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION IN AGRICULTURE: LAND RETIREMENT VERSUS CHANGING PRACTICES ON WORKING LAND

Palavras-chave: Technical efficiency; Stochastic production frontier; Economies in transition; Grain production; Disorganization hypothesis; Crop Production/Industries.

Ano: 2000

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18615

Feng, Hongli; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L.; Gassman, Philip W..

The study develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the allocation of conservation funds via selectively offering incentive payments to farmers for enrolling in one of two mutually exclusive agricultural conservation programs: retiring land from production or changing farming practices on land that remains in production. We investigate how the existence of a pre-fixed budget allocation between the programs affects the amounts of environmental benefits obtainable under alternative policy implementation schemes. The framework is applied to a major agricultural production region using field-scale data in conjunction with empirical models of land retirement and conservation tillage adoption, and a biophysical process simulation model for the environmental...

Environmental Impacts of Emerging Biomass Feedstock Markets: Energy, Agriculture, and the Farmer

Palavras-chave: Conservation Reserve Program; Land retirement; Working land; Environmental Economics and Policy; Land Economics/Use.

Ano: 2004

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18627

Dodder, Rebecca S.; Amani, Elobeid; Johnson, Timothy L.; Kaplan, P. Ozge; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Secchi, Silvia; Tokgoz, Simla.

The tighter linkages between energy and crop markets due to recent climate and energy legislation in the US have large potential environmental impacts beyond carbon sequestration and climate mitigation. These range from effects on water quality and quantity, soil erosion, habitat and biodiversity preservation. These impacts are very location and management-decision specific, as they are the product of atomistic decisions and depend on soil and landscape specific variables. In order to fully understand the effects of biomass markets, the new and stronger linkages and feedback effects between national- and global-scale energy and commodity markets must be properly understood and identified using an integrated perspective. We discuss the various interactions...

Tipo: Working Paper

Palavras-chave: Energy and Commodity markets linkages; Integrated energy system assessment; Environmental impacts; Biofuels.; Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy; Farm Management; Land Economics/Use; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy.

Ano: 2011

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/118453

Production Efficiency in Ukrainian Agriculture and the Process of Economic Reform

Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Jensen, Helen H..

A representative sample of 49 state and collective farms in Ukraine provides data in physical units on livestock and crop production and input use for 1989-92. The changes in production efficiency for beef, pork, dairy, winter wheat, grain, and potato production, investigated using stochastic frontier methods, show declining technical efficiency in livestock production and especially low marginal contribution of labor inputs. The number of workers, size of farm, and distance from nearest city are related to efficiency in agricultural production.

Avoiding biases from data-dependent specification search: an application to a tillage choice model

Palavras-chave: Technical efficiency; Panel data; Economies in transition; Frontier production function; Productivity Analysis.

Ano: 1996

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/18581

Sengupta, Sanchita; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Kling, Catherine L..

The study evaluates the gains of avoiding data-dependent specification search on an estimation sample in an application to discrete choice models. We incorporate data splitting, the process by which the total available sample is randomly split in two or more sub-samples with the first (specification) sub-sample used for specification search, and the second (estimation) sub-sample used for obtaining clean estimates using the model chosen on the specification sub-sample according to a set criterion. We estimate 14 binary Logit models of the adoption of conservation tillage corresponding to the major sub-watersheds of the Upper Mississippi River Basin. For each of the sub-watershed models, we use the specification sub-sample to choose the explanatory...

Privatizing Ecosystem Services: Water Quality Effects from a Carbon Market

Palavras-chave: Research Methods/ Statistical Methods.

Ano: 2006

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/21399

Secchi, Silvia; Jha, Manoj K.; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Feng, Hongli; Gassman, Philip W.; Kling, Catherine L..

Tipo: Journal Article

Palavras-chave: Resource /Energy Economics and Policy; Q25.

Ano: 2007

URL: http://purl.umn.edu/94484

The Conservation Reserve Program in the Presence of a Working Land Alternative: Implications for Environmental Quality, Program Participation, and Income Transfer

Feng, Hongli; Kling, Catherine L.; Kurkalova, Lyubov A.; Secchi, Silvia; Gassman, Philip W..

The United States has invested large sums of resources in multiple conservation programs for agriculture over the past century. In this paper we focus on the impacts of program interactions. Specifically, using an integrated economic and bio-physical modeling framework, we consider the impacts of the presence of working land programs on a land retirement for an important agricultural regionthe Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). Compared to a land retirement only program, we find that the presence of a working land program for conservation tillage results in significantly lower predicted signups for land retirement at a given rental rate. We also find that the presence of both a large working land and land retirement program can result in more...