Mandated agricultural commodity promotion programs - such as «Got Milk» - are highly visible, economically important, and controversial. In recent years, these programs have spent more than $1 billion on generic commodity promotion. They are authorized by producer referenda and funded using mandatory commodity taxes on producers and/or handlers. These programs have been the subject of much dispute and litigation, especially in California, which is home to a large number of them. This book takes a comprehensive look at the economic consequences and the resulting legal implications of commodity promotion programs in California, and distills the key consequences for similar programs on a national scale.

This book serves as a foundational reference of U.S. land settlement and early agricultural policy, a comprehensive journey through the evolution of 20th century agricultural policy, and a detailed guide to the key agricultural policy issues of the early 21st century. This book integrates the legal, economic and political concepts and ideas that guided U.S. agricultural policy from colonial settlement to the 21st century, and it applies those concepts to the policy issues agriculture will face over the next generation. The book is organized into three sections. Section one introduces the main themes of the book, explores the pre-Columbian period and early European settlement, and traces the first 150 years of U.S. agricultural policy starting with the post revolution period and ending with the “golden age” of agriculture in the early 20th century. Section two outlines that grand bargain of the 1930s that initiated the modern era of government intervention into agricultural markets and traces this policy evolution to the early days of the 21st century. The third section provides an in-depth examination of six policy issues that dominate current policy discussions and will impact policy decisions for the next generation: trade, environment/conservation, commodity checkoff programs, crop insurance, biofuels, and domestic nutrition programs.

This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. Defining ¿local¿ based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers¿ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Charts and tables.

First reference on food consumption and policy.

Published continuously since 1972, Agricultural Product Prices has become the standard textbook and reference work for students in agricultural and applied economics, buyers and sellers of commodities, and policymakers, clearly explaining conceptual and empirical models applicable to agricultural product markets. The new fifth edition uses up-to-date information and models to explain the behavior of agricultural product prices. Topics include price differences over market levels (marketing margins), price differences over space (regionally and internationally) and by quality attributes, and price variability with the passage of time (seasonal and cyclical variations, trends, and random behavior). William G. Tomek and Harry M. Kaiser review and adapt microeconomic principles to the characteristics of agricultural commodity markets and then apply these principles to the various dimensions of price behavior. They also provide an in-depth discussion of prices established for futures contracts and their relationship to cash (spot) market prices; cover the influential roles of price discovery institutions, such as auctions and negotiated contracts, and government policies regulating trade and farms; and discuss the specification, use, and evaluation of empirical models of agricultural prices, placing emphasis on the challenges of doing high-quality, useful analyses and interpreting results.