For courses in Introduction to Agricultural or Applied Economics Introduction to Agricultural Economics provides students with a systematic introduction to the basic economic concepts and issues impacting the U.S. food and fiber industry and offers strong coverage of macroeconomic theory and international trade. Teaching and Learning Experience: Strong coverage of macroeconomics, the role of government, and international agricultural trade: The coverage of macroeconomics and agricultural programs and policies allows students to further understand the domestic market economy. Building block approach: Discusses individual consumer and producer decision-making, market equilibrium and economic welfare conditions, government intervention in agriculture, macroeconomic policy, and international trade. Extensive chapter review: Each chapter contains an extensive list of questions designed to test student comprehension of the material covered. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.

Modern tools, such as GIS and remote sensing, are increasingly used in the monitoring of agricultural resources. The developments in GIS technology offer growing opportunities to agricultural economics analysts dealing with large and detailed spatial databases, allowing them to combine spatial information from different sources and to produce different models. The availability of these valuable sources of information makes the advanced models suggested in the spatial statistic and econometric literature applicable to agricultural economics. This book aims at supporting stakeholders to design spatial surveys for agricultural data and/or to analyse the geographically collected data. This book attempts to describe the main typology of agricultural data and the most appropriate methods for the analysis, together with a detailed description of the available data sources and their collection methods. Topics such as spatial interpolation, point patterns, spatial autocorrelation, survey data analysis, small area estimation, regional data modelling, and spatial econometrics techniques are covered jointly with issues arising from the integration of several data types. The theory of spatial methods is complemented by real and/or simulated examples implemented through the open-source software R.

This volume is written primarily for agricultural economists doing research on productivity. It includes discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of productivity measurement as well as the many practical considerations that go into translating this theory into actual measures of aggregated outputs and inputs. The unifying concept of agricultural productivity used across the chapters of this volume is aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) of the sector. The volume also contains detailed analysis of the underlying causes of agricultural productivity growth. Part I (chapters 2-6) examines agricultural productivity in high-income and transition countries. Part II (chapters 7-11) examines agricultural productivity growth and its driving forces in five important agricultural producers in Asia and Latin America. Part III (chapters 12-14) focuses on measuring and identifying constraints to agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Part IV (chapters 15-16) gives a global perspective on agricultural productivity.

The book highlights proceedings from the Berlin 2008: Agriculture and Development conference held in preparation for the World Development Report 2008.

The globalization of goods, services and capital for agriculture is fundamental to the future of developing countries and has major implications for the fight against poverty and sustainability of the environment. In recent years, agriculture has once again returned to a position of centre stage as food price volatility has led countries to re-examine their development strategies. This new edition of the essential textbook in the field builds on the 2006 original and reflects the following developments: the increased impact of climate change issues affecting agricultural markets such as bio-fuels, the rise in farm prices and energy costs the move to higher valued agricultural products The book contains a wealth of real world case studies and is now accompanied by a website that includes powerpoint lectures, a photo bank and a large set of discussion and exam questions. The accompanying website is available to view at http://ecagdev.agecon.vt.edu/

This book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, natural resources and other sectors. The result is an agricultural economics textbook that provides students and instructors with a clear, up-to-date, and straightforward approach to learning how a market-based economy functions, and how to use simple economic principles for improved decision making. While the primary focus of the book is on microeconomic aspects, agricultural economics has expanded over recent decades to include issues of macroeconomics, international trade, agribusiness, environmental economics, natural resources, and international development. Hence, these topics are also provided with significant coverage.

In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected, success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of products at falling prices, even as it has released a growing number of workers to the rest of the economy. This book, a comprehensive history of world agriculture during this period, explains how these feats were accomplished. Feeding the World synthesizes two hundred years of agricultural development throughout the world, providing all essential data and extensive references to the literature. It covers, systematically, all the factors that have affected agricultural performance: environment, accumulation of inputs, technical progress, institutional change, commercialization, agricultural policies, and more. The last chapter discusses the contribution of agriculture to modern economic growth. The book is global in its reach and analysis, and represents a grand synthesis of an enormous topic.

Ulrich Koester researches and teaches at the Institute for Agricultural Economics at the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany. He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry for over 20 years. Moreover, he gained experience working with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C. and with numerous international organizations, including the World Bank, FAO, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors. His teaching experience is based on courses taught at more than ten universities in general economics and agricultural economics. Part I of the book lays the theoretical foundations for understanding price formation in product and factor markets. In addition to neoclassical theory, institutional economics is of particular importance. Part II presents and evaluates agricultural policy with special reference to the EU, whereby the evaluation framework goes beyond the usual welfare theory analysis. The book is also a valuable aid for students of economic policy, especially because of its detailed evaluation of individual agricultural market policy instruments. The book is aimed at students at universities, technical colleges as well as politicians interested in rational agricultural policy making.