Timothy G. Baker

An Examination of Farm Sector Real Asset Dynamics: 1910–85

The dynamic response of real farm asset values to changes in net returns and interest rates is studied using vector autoregression. Results show that a shock in real asset values, real returns to assets, or real interest rates leads to a process in which real asset values overreact. In the initial period, a reaction to a shock immediately occurs followed by a continued build-up in the asset value for up to six years until finally the effect of the one-time, transitory shock begins to die out. The results suggest a market with a propensity for bubbles.

The Theoretical Effects of Farm Policies on Optimal Leverage and the Probability of Equity Losses

The degree to which the use of debt is increased in response to risk-reducing and income-augmenting farm policies is studied theoretically. A mean-variance model is used to determine the optimal leverage adjustment, then the effects of policies on the cumulative probability of earning very low rates of return on equity are examined. The evidence suggests that farm policies induce a large enough increase in financial leverage to increase the probability of farmers having negative returns to equity.

Risk Sharing versus Low-Cost Credit Systems for International Development

Low-cost credit programs in developing countries have failed to achieve agricultural technology adoption goals. This research attributes the failure to the inability of poor farmers to bear the combined business and financial risks posed by adopting new technologies and develops proposals for the design of credit programs that reduce these risks. Agronomic and socioeconomic data are combined through simulation and mathematical programming to analyze problems of decision making under risk for developing countries. The results will assist in the design of new rural financial institutions conducive to the adoption of new production technologies by subsistence farmers.

Economics of erosion-control and seed-fertilizer technologies for hillside farming in Honduras

With population growth still at very high rates and large-scale commercial farmers and cattle ranchers owning much of the more fertile valley land, small-scale farmers are concentrated on increasingly marginal, steeply sloping hillsides in Central America. The continuing soil erosion and land degradation in these low-input staple crop production hillside farming systems lead many to be pessimistic about increasing the agricultural incomes of these farmers. However, this study shows that the appropriate combination of improved technologies and agricultural policy or alternative production diversification strategies can improve the incomes of small-scale hillside farmers in southern Honduras by over 50%. The technology components considered are stone walls and ditches combined with living tree barriers to prevent erosion of the hillsides, and a package of improved sorghum seed, seed treatment, and modest doses of nitrogenous fertilizer. A whole-farm mathematical programming framework is used to determine the potential farm-level income effects of the soil-conservation and seed-fertilizer technologies. The main conclusion is that erosion-control devices and yield-increasing crop varieties and fertilizer are an effective technology introduction strategy for the erosion-prone hillside landholdings found in many areas of Central America. If policy actions or diversification strategies for disposal of surplus grain are found which are effective in reducing the risk of low income from cereal price reductions in high-production years, adoption of the improved technologies is shown to be profitable for small-scale farmers. Another benefit not explicitly considered would be to slow the very rapid growth of urban poverty in these countries. Sensitivity analysis results indicated that neither risk aversion nor the increased availability of crop land or initial cash have any substantial effects on the predicted adoption level of the improved technologies, or on their income impacts for these farmers.

Systematic and Nonsystematic Risk in Farm Portfolio Selection

The concepts of systematic and nonsystematic risk are evaluated as risk measures in farm planning models. A diagonal quadratic programming model based upon a single-index model yields farm plans similar to the full variance-covariance quadratic program with four of thirteen farm plans being identical. Surprisingly, a linear programming model using only systematic risk produces farm plans that are identical to the full variance-covariance quadratic program for eleven of thirteen income levels. Accordingly, it is suggested that single-index-based programming models may prove to be practical alternatives for deriving mean-variance-efficient farm plans.

A comparison of criteria for evaluating risk management strategies

Several criteria that produce rankings of risk management strategies are evaluated. The criteria considered are expected return, value at risk, the Sharpe ratio, the necessary condition for first‐degree stochastic dominance with a risk‐free asset, and the necessary condition for second‐degree stochastic dominance with a risk‐free asset. The criteria performed relatively well in that the most desirable strategy under each criterion was always at least a member of the second‐degree stochastic dominance efficient set. There was also a relatively high degree of consistency between the highest ranked strategies under the various criteria. The effectiveness of the criteria increases as decision makers are assumed to be more risk averse and have greater access to financial leverage

The Importance of Financial Leverage and Risk Aversion in Risk-Management Strategy Selection

The problem of choice among risk-management strategies is addressed with the stochastic dominance with a risk-free asset (SDRA) criteria. The SDRA criteria consider all possible combinations of the strategies and financial leverage. This allows for strategies with less business risk, less expected return, and greater leverage to dominate strategies with greater business risk and greater expected return. Results show that the inclusion of the risk-free asset significantly improves the discriminatory power of the ordinary stochastic dominance criteria for the case of risk-management strategies. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Farmland: Is It Currently Priced As An Attractive Investment?

Farmland prices have risen dramatically in recent years, which has attracted interest from the broader investment community. At the same time, concern is being expressed regarding another bubble in farmland prices. This paper studies and compares the farmland price to cash rent ratio (P/rent) with the price to earnings (P/E) ratio of stocks. We find that the farmland P/rent ratio has reached historical highs and is currently at the level of the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 during the tech bubble. Data from 1911 to 2012 are used to estimate the beta of farmland, a measure of the risk that farmland adds to a diversified portfolio. The beta is found to be very low over this period. Farmland returns are also regressed against expected and unexpected inflation, and we find that farmland moves relatively close to one-to-one with inflation. We also report 10- and 20-year holding period returns for farmland and find that the relationship between return and the cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is strongly negative. Moreover, the current cyclically adjusted P/rent ratio is extremely high, indicating a reason for caution when investors are considering farmland purchases.

Crop residue supply for energy generation: A prototype application to midwestern U.S.A. grain farms

Abstract This analysis focuses on the dynamics of the production process, sequential decision making, and weather uncertainty as they affect the crop residue supply response of midwestern United States grain farms. Supply estimates for a typical grain farm are reported under varying harvest season weather conditions. A supply response analysis for a hypothetical region suggests that crop residue production would be quite price responsive and variable. The development of new harvest techniques and storage are identified as important to the economic viability of crop residues as energy resources.

Interpreting Dual Variables for Optimization with Nonmonetary Objectives

An approach to the interpretation of dual variables for mathematical programs with nonmonetary objectives is described. The approach is general, and in particular may be applied to problems of goal programming, expected utility maximization, intertemporal utility maximization and risk minimization subject to minimum income constraints. The technique is designed to transform shadow prices, expressed in marginal increases in the objective per unit of resource, into easily interpreted units, such as dollars per unit of resource.