Bill R. Miller

Formulation Of Broiler Finishing Rations By Quadratic Programming

Least cost feed mix by linear programming (LP) is a standard economic analysis in the poultry industry. A significant body of nutrition knowledge is now contained in the constraint set of industry LP models. This knowledge might be merged into an improved economic model that contains production response information. Analysis using a quadratic programming model indicated that a leading broiler firm could have improved economic efficiency by increasing protein density and reducing energy density of broiler finisher feed. If applicable industry wide, similar savings could be as high as

A Short-Run Price Prediction Model for Eggs

120 million per year.

Potential world trade in a futures contract for shelled edible peanuts

The volume of eggs traded in open markets is extremely small relative to total volume of eggs produced. One result has been criticism that current price quotes are formed from insufficient information. The model presented here projects a current quote based on information from a national sample of producers.

The myth of large farm superiority: Lessons from agricultural transition in poland

This study reports the result of a world-wide survey showing favorable interest in a peanut futures contract (20 metric tons). A US exchange was preferred with possible delivery points in Savannah and Rotterdam. Hedging contracts were estimated to be 52,000 contracts annually with speculative contracts estimated to range from a low of 16,000 to as high as 303,000. This was judged to be the minimum volume for a successful contract and would be expected to increase significantly if the US price support program is abandoned. Thirty-seven percent of peanuts handled in the market were under the control of five firms. This level of concentration was noted as a problem by a majority of survey respondents and is considered to be a major factor in contract potential.

Some Evidence on Pecuniary Economies of Size for Farm Firms

In Poland, larger farms are often actively promoted over small farms. This policy is based on the perception that there are economies of scale that favor large farms; however, this is contrary to international evidence, which generally indicates that larger farms are less efficient and use less labor than smallscale family farms. Using both total factor productivity measures and data envelopment analysis, empirical findings from Poland suggest that larger farms are no more efficient than smaller farms, and smaller farms are relatively more labor-intensive. These results have important policy implications for farm restructuring in Poland and other transition economies.

ESTIMATES OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION LEVELS IN U.S. PEANUT MARKETS

Economies of size for farm firms in the United States are a traditional interest of agricultural economists (Heady). Continued interest in this topic is related to the implication of economies of size for the size structure of farm firms. The structure issue has the potential to affect not only current farm firms but also agricultural marketing firms, rural communities, and consumers of agricultural commodities (Krause and Kyle). In the past, the relationship between economies of size and farm firm growth was the basis for research. More recently, the relationship of economies of size to public policy issues has gained attention (Bardnam, Hall and LeVeen, Seckler and Young).

Implications of Public School Finance Reform with Local Control

Unilateral liberalization of U.S. peanut policy was evaluated using a model of U.S. and world peanut supply and demand. Under the proposed policy, world peanut price would rise slightly to

Revenue and Cost Uncertainty, Generalized Mean-Variance and the Linear Complementarity Problem: Comment

.20 per pound at the U.S. farm level. U.S. production would decline by 578 million pounds per year and would be offset by imports of 582 million pounds. U.S. net farm income would fall by

Measuring inter‐industry impacts of producing and processing agricultural products

405 million per year. Lost income per farm would be

New evidence of agriculture as an underdeveloped sector of the U.S. economy

21,000 per year while the average outlay of consumers would decrease by