This book analyzes the economics of the food industry at every stage between the farm gate and the kitchen counter. Central to the text are agricultural marketing problems such as the allocation of production between competing products (such as fresh and frozen markets), spatial competition, interregional trade, optimal storage, and price discrimination. Topics covered will be useful to students who expect to have careers such as food processing management, food sector buying or selling, restaurant management, supermarket management, marketing/advertising, risk management, and product development. The focus is on real world-relevant skills and examples and on intuition and economic understanding above mathematical sophistication, although the text does draw on the nuances of modern economic theory.

Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Volume Five highlights new advances in the field, with this new release exploring comprehensive chapters written by an international board of authors who discuss topics such as The Economics of Agricultural Innovation, Climate, food and agriculture, Agricultural Labor Markets: Immigration Policy, Minimum Wages, Etc., Risk Management in Agricultural Production, Animal Health and Livestock Disease, Behavioral and Experimental Economics to Inform Agri-Environmental Programs and Policies, Big Data, Machine Learning Methods for Agricultural and Applied Economists, Agricultural data collection to minimize measurement error and maximize coverage, Gender, agriculture and nutrition, Social Networks Analysis In Agricultural Economics, and more. Presents the latest release in the Handbook of Agricultural Economics Written and contributed by leaders in the field Covers topics such as The Economics of Agricultural Innovation, Climate, Food and Agriculture, Agricultural Labor Markets, and more

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.

In this chapter we compute measures of total factor productivity (TFP) growth for developing countries and then contrast TFP growth with technological capital indexes. In developing these indexes, we incorporate schooling capital to yield two new indexes: Invention-Innovation Capital and Technology Mastery. We find that TFP performance is strongly related to technological capital and that technological capital is required for TFP and cost reduction growth. Investments in technological capital require long-term (20- to 40-year) investments, which are typically made by governments and aid agencies and are the only viable escape route from mass poverty.

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.

Today’s food and agribusiness managers operate in a rapidly changing, highly volatile, international, high technology, consumer-focused world. Agribusiness Management helps prepare students and managers for a successful career in this new world of food and fiber production and marketing. This text uses four specific approaches to help readers develop and enhance their capabilities as agribusiness managers. First, it offers a contemporary focus that reflects the issues that agribusiness managers face today and are likely to face tomorrow. Second, the book presents conceptual material in a pragmatic way with illustrations and examples that will help the reader understand how a specific concept works in practice. Third, the book has a decision-making emphasis, providing contemporary tools that readers will find useful when making decisions in the contemporary business environment. Finally, Agribusiness Management offers a pertinent set of discussion questions and case studies that will allow the reader to apply the material covered in real-world situations. This fifth edition of Agribusiness Management has been updated throughout and continues to provide students and adult learners with an essential understanding of what it takes to be a successful agribusiness manager in today’s rapidly evolving, highly unpredictable marketplace.

This textbook addresses the main economic principles required by agricultural economists involved in rural development. The principles of 'micro-economics' or 'price-theory' are of relevance to economists everywhere, but this book reinforces the message of their relevance for rural development by explaining the theory in the specific context of the agricultural and food sectors of developing countries. Hypothetical and actual empirical illustrations drawn almost exclusively from such countries distinguish this book from other economic principles texts that draw their examples almost invariably from industrialised countries, and also from books more oriented to the issue of rural development. The first half of the book deals with the underlying principles of production, supply and demand. These are essential tools for the study and management of the agricultural sector and food markets. In the second half, supply and demand are bought together into a chapter of equilibrium and exchange. This is followed by chapters on trade and the theory of economic welfare. In the final chapter it is shown that much of the material in the earlier chapters can be combined by agricultural economists into a system for analysing and comparing the effects of alternative agricultural policies. The ability of agricultural economics to provide a consistent framework for the analysis of policy problems thus enables it to make a key contribution to rural development.

Forestry Economics introduces students and practitioners to all aspects of the management and economics of forestry. The book adopts the approach of managerial economics textbooks and applies this to the unique processes and problems faced by managers of forests. While most forestry economics books are written by economists for future economists, what many future forest and natural resource managers need is to understand what economic information is and how to use it to make better business and management decisions. John E. Wagner draws on his twenty years of experience teaching and working in the field of forest resource economics to present students with an accessible understanding of the unique production processes and problems faced by forest and other natural resource managers. There are three unique features of this book: The first is its organization. The material is organized around two common economic models used in forest and natural resources management decision making. The second is the use of case studies from various disciplines: Outdoor and Commercial Recreation, Wood Products Engineering, Forest Products, and Forestry. The purpose of these case studies is to provide students with applications of the concepts being discussed within the text. The third is revisiting the question of how to use economic information to make better business decisions at the end of each chapter. This ties each chapter to the preceding ones and reinforces the hypothesis that a solid working knowledge of these economic models and the information they contain are necessary for making better business decisions. This textbook is an invaluable source of clear and accessible information on forestry economics and management for not only economics students, but for students of other disciplines and those already working in forestry and natural resources.

This Handbook offers an up-to-date collection of research on agricultural economics. Drawing together scholarship from experts at the top of their profession and from around the world, this collection provides new insights into the area of agricultural economics. The Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Economics explores a broad variety of topics including welfare economics, econometrics, agribusiness, and consumer economics. This wide range reflects the way in which agricultural economics encompasses a large sector of any economy, and the chapters present both an introduction to the subjects as well as the methodology, statistical background, and operations research techniques needed to solve practical economic problems. In addition, food economics is given a special focus in the Handbook due to the recent emphasis on health and feeding the world population a quality diet. Furthermore, through examining these diverse topics, the authors seek to provide some indication of the direction of research in these areas and where future research endeavors may be productive. Acting as a comprehensive, up-to-date, and definitive work of reference, this Handbook will be of use to researchers, faculty, and graduate students looking to deepen their understanding of agricultural economics, agribusiness, and applied economics, and the interrelationship of those areas.

This book discusses machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for agricultural economics. It is written with a view towards bringing the benefits of advanced analytics and prognostics capabilities to small scale farmers worldwide. This volume provides data science and software engineering teams with the skills and tools to fully utilize economic models to develop the software capabilities necessary for creating lifesaving applications. The book introduces essential agricultural economic concepts from the perspective of full-scale software development with the emphasis on creating niche blue ocean products. Chapters detail several agricultural economic and AI reference architectures with a focus on data integration, algorithm development, regression, prognostics model development and mathematical optimization. Upgrading traditional AI software development paradigms to function in dynamic agricultural and economic markets, this volume will be of great use to researchers and students in agricultural economics, data science, engineering, and machine learning as well as engineers and industry professionals in the public and private sectors.