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.

Agricultural Economics and Management offers a consistent approach to production theory by concentrating on physical relationships, economic relationships and maximization criteria.

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

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.

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.

Persistent problems with poverty, rapid population growth and malnutrition in many developing countries are among the most serious issues facing the world today. This book examines the causes, severity and effects of these problems, as well as potential solutions. The authors consider the implications of globalization of goods, services and capital for agriculture, poverty and the environment; and identify linkages in the world food system, stressing how agricultural and economic situations in poor countries affect industrialized nations and vice versa. Focusing on the role that agriculture can play in improving economic and nutritional wellbeing and how that role might be enhanced, this book is essential reading.

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.