AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION ECONOMICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1017304
• Project Start Date: Nov 1, 2018
• Project End Date: Oct 31, 2023
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824

Performing Department
Agricultural, Food, & Resource Economics

Non Technical Summary
In researching the economics of agricultural sustainability, this project focuses on voluntary behavioral change by farmers. It asks, "Why would a farmer wish to adopt a new stewardship practice?" In general, the answers tend to depend on technology, incentives, available resources, knowledge, and attitudes. All of these are changing, the first two of them especially. The spread of information and genetic technologies is creating new technological opportunities. At the same time, marketing channels are becoming more able to price products according to their specific attributes, including environmental footprint. And policy incentives for farmers are evolving with public awareness of the sustainability of farming practices affects society at large.This project will use a variety of economic research methods to understand and inform the sustainability of agricultural management decisions. Some methods aim to compare management approaches in the abstract, using financial and environmental accounting or mathematical optimization and simulation models. Other methods aim to understand decisions by farmers and citizens under real and hypothetical circumstances, using interviews, focus groups, experimental choices, and surveys. By these means, the project aims to inform agro-environmental policy design and technology adoption in ways that improve the environmental and economic sustainability of farming.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

30%

Applied

50%

Developmental

20%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
601	2410	3010	50%
605	0199	3010	50%

Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management; 605 - Natural Resource and Environmental Economics;

Subject Of Investigation
0199 - Soil and land, general; 2410 - Cross-commodity research--multiple crops;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;

Keywords

technology adoption

conservation

precision agriculture

biodiversity value

decision analysis

Goals / Objectives
This project has two broad objectives. The first aims to understand farmer decisions about the adoption of technology and change management practices (with the goal of providing decision support). The second objective examines policy incentives that can enhance environmental performance in agriculture. These two objectives align with the two primary USDA knowledge areas (KAs) involved in this project. Sub-objectives fit with specific projects that are envisioned at time of writing, with others possibly emerging under the broad general objectives. The two objectives both involve analytical focus on profitability, economic risk, and the environmental and health consequences of agricultural production and natural resource management activities.Understand and enhance farmer decisions on agricultural technology and management practices. Farmers manage in the context of uncertain and changing weather, pests, and prices. Their investments in people, equipment, land, and variable inputs shape the trajectories of farm profitability and environmental quality for years to come. Using tools from the USDA knowledge area of Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management (KA 601), we dig into the following sub-objectives:Crop management in the context of surrounding landscape and evolving climate. Agro-ecological research is revealing ways that crop productivity depends upon natural pest control and pollination that are supported by non-crop landscapes (Gardiner, et al., 2009; Tscharntke, et al., 2012). Likewise, emerging research suggests that changing climate affects soil microbiota, potentially including their ability to supply nutrients to crops through biogeochemical cycling (Evans and Wallenstein, 2012). What are potential economic benefits and costs of adopting management practices that enhance populations of wild species and the ecosystem services they provide?Farmer choices and evolving genetic and information technologies. Genetic engineering (GE) has made crops more resistant to pests, among other advantages. But rapid farmer adoption of GE crops has stimulated the evolution of resistant weeds and pests; it may also have affected wild populations, such as monarch butterflies (Gould, Brown and Kuzma, 2018). To what degree have farmer choices of technology changed ecosystem services from agriculture? How, in turn, have evolving weed and pest genetics triggered changes in management of crop pests (and with what environmental consequences)?Policy tools to encourage improved environmental performance from agriculture. Agro-environmental policy can influence both the profitability and the feasibility of alternative farm management choices. Focusing on voluntary adoption of environmentally beneficial practices and technologies, this objective explores the viability of policy tools to enhance environmental stewardship by better internalizing economic externalities and establishing clearer property rights that reduce public good problems. The research is shaped by a supply side (willingness-to-accept) perspective in the USDA knowledge area on Natural Resource and Environmental Economics (KA 605).Incentives for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. Given the costs (sometimes hidden) and risks of environmental stewardship practices, which policy incentives are most attractive to farmers? Which are most cost-effective for those paying the costs? How do private sector and public sector approaches differ in attractiveness and cost-effectiveness?Information provision for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. Under what conditions and to what degree can information provision encourage the adoption of environmentally beneficial practices? What can spatially and temporally targeted information do i) to reduce waste from misdirected agrochemical inputs and ii) to enhance the quality and traceability of agricultural products? While not an explicit objective, a pervasive subtext is how to structure and compellingly communicate findings from this research that is both disciplinary and interdisciplinary.

Project Methods
1a: Crop management in the context of surrounding landscape and evolving climate Conservation strips have the potential to offer water quality and other ecosystem services if introduced into crop fields (Schulte, et al., 2017). But conservation strips come at both the direct cost of non-uniform field management and the opportunity cost of foregoing crop revenue from the area that the strips occupy. In order to understand the implied cost to farmers, we will undertake a stated preference choice experiment to measure their willingness to adopt conservation strips in exchange for payment (willingness-to-accept, WTA) (Freeman III, Herriges and Kling, 2014). Farmers will be presented with a designed experiment in which they may accept or reject a 10-year contract (modeled on the USDA Conservation Reserve Program) under which they plant and maintain conservation strips on up 5% of a crop field. The randomized complete block experimental design will vary the payment level from none to 8% of expected crop income (4 levels) and will vary the vegetation in the conservation strip from natural fallow (no cost) to selected grasses and wildflowers (3 levels). The survey will be sent to 5,000 farmers who are being added to the Crop Management Stewardship Practices survey, which follows a standard four-contact mail survey methodology (Dillman, Smyth and Christian, 2014). Using an econometric probit model, we will test the effect of the payment level and the vegetation mix on the probability that prairie strips are accepted. In parallel, we will partner with ecologists on the KBS-LTER project to measure the budgetary costs of conservation strips, balanced against the economic value of their ecological benefits. Drawing upon environmental benefit values from the literature (Boyle, et al., 2010; Wilson and Hoehn, 2006) and using benefit functions where possible, we will develop estimates of the value of ecosystem services emanating from the conservation strips compared to observed costs and anticipated costs that farmers report from the survey.1b: Farmer choices and evolving genetic and information technologies. This research subobjective has thrusts focusing on 1) how farmers have responded to the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds (GRWs) and the environmental consequences of their responses, and 2) how the spread of GE crops has affected butterfly populations. The research into farmer response to GRWs uses a 23-year (1998-2016), unbalanced panel of agricultural seed and pesticide use decisions by over 5,000 U.S. corn-soybean farmers. Prior research with an earlier version of the same dataset established the complementarity of GE glyphosate-tolerant crops and use of no-till and conservation tillage (Perry, Moschini and Hennessy, 2016). We will combine this dataset with state-by-state panel data on herbicide resistant weeds (from Dr. Ian Heap). Using a bivariate probit model, with extension to nested probit to capture major groupings of herbicide choices, we will estimate the effect of GRW spread on input choices by soybean farmers. Three competing hypotheses linked to farm input choices have been proposed to explain the decline of monarch and other butterfly populations in North America. Using 1998-2016 panel data set referenced above, we propose to link this dataset to subregional panel data on butterfly populations from the North American Butterfly Monitoring Network (https://www.thebutterflynetwork.org/monitor-tracker). By regressing butterfly population numbers on spatially and temporally lagged butterfly numbers and spatially lagged farm input data, we hope to test these hypothesis at scale.2a: Incentives for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. Building upon the WTA results from the research under (1a) into farmer willingness to plant conservation strips, we use the sampling design to extrapolate from one field per farm to corn-soy farms generally in the four Eastern Farm Belt states covered by the CMSP survey. Using survey-weighted results, we will predict the potential supply of conservation strip land at increasing payment levels. That information, in turn, will be compared to alternative specifications of the demand (willingness to pay) for the ecosystem services associated with conservation strips, as estimated using benefit transfer methods, in order to determine whether there exists the potential to find willing buyers and sellers of the environmental benefits associated with conservation strips. Depending upon results from the research under (1b), we will attempt to estimate the implied annual trajectories of added financial and environmental costs due to herbicide resistant weeds, using the case of soybean production and the spread of GRWs.2b: Information provision for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. Extending the conservation strip research under (1a), we will recruit focus groups of farmers to test their willingness to use crop yield mapping to identify unproductive field areas for conservation plantings. We will elicit from farmers their ideas for how to farm fields with irregularly shaped conservation areas. If we can gain access to suitable agro-environmental simulation software, we will engage the same focus groups with hypothetical cropping practice choice experiments to test two hypotheses related to environmental benefits of precision farming. The first hypothesis (information effect) holds that farmers are more likely to adopt environmentally beneficial cropping practices if trustworthy simulations indicate that environmental benefits would be significant while costs would be modest. The second one (peer pressure effect) predicts that the environmental information effect would be stronger if family members and trusted friends could run the same simulations and then speak to the farmer before a decision is taken. We hope to undertake this research with two different kinds of simulation software, 1) site-specific biogeochemical, crop growth models (for fertilizer nutrient management) and 2) landscape-level vegetative cover models (for pest biocontrol and pollinator habitat management). If an information and possibly a peer pressure effect are found, we would explore mechanisms and incentives to make such information accessible to farmers.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:University students, researchers, policy professionals, and members of the public with interest in economic aspects of environmental management in agriculture. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During 2019-20, I provided graduate training and research mentorship as major professor (advisor) to Braeden VanDeynze (PhD student) (2015-20) (graduated 2020) Zachary Luther (MS student) (2018-20) (graduated 2020) Peijyun Lu (PhD student) (2019-20) Natalie Loduca (PhD student) (2020) Rania Lachhab (PhD student) (2020) Aastha Pudasainee (MS student) (2020) I provided research mentorship via graduate guidance committee service to the following students: April Athnos (PhD student) (2019-20) Abubakr Ayesh (PhD student) (2020) Gregory Boudreaux (MS student) (2019-20) Yuyuan Che (PhD student) (2019-20) Dervis Durmaz (MS student) (2020) Hyunjung Kim (PhD student) (2020) Minsu Kim (PhD student) (2020) Yingjie Li (PhD student) (2019-20) Pin Lu (PhD student) (2020) Andya Pakpahan (MS student) (2020) How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated through: Professional journals (3 new articles published during 2019-20, reported elsewhere): Disciplinary journals in agricultural and applied economics such as Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy Major subject matter, multidisciplinary journals, such as Global Change Biology and Journal of Soil and Water Conservation Professional meeting & workshop presentations, including oral, papers and posters at: 2nd Annual Sustainability and Development Conference, University of Michigan, Oct. 11-14, 2019. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association virtual annual meeting, August 10-11, 2020. KBS-LTER (Long-term Ecological Research) External Review (virtual) Sept. 9-10, 2020. News media articles in: Michigan Farm News (2019 [Oct]) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During 2020-21, we are initiating a study of how Michigan farmers perceive the evolving probability of crop yields in response to changing climate and environmental conditions. Along with those changing perceptions or yield risk, we will elicit their plans to manage that risk via changes in crops planted, varietal traits, soil and water management, and insurance policies. In a new project on the potential market for cultivated morels in the North-Central states, we will analyze 2020 survey data from gatherers of wild morels and begin collecting cost-of-production data from farmer collaborators (joint NC-SARE project with G. Bonito and D. Malone). In a new study with M.S. student Dervis Durmaz, we will examine the returns to research to control spotted-wing Drosophila in Michigan tart cherry. In a just-funded NRCS project with B. Basso, we will be measuring the impact of on-farm experimental treatments using variable-rate, precision agriculture technology. We plan to push several papers that were drafted in the current year toward publication, including: Luther et al (2020) on potential farm supply of prairie strips in Eastern Corn Belt (submitted), Van Deynze et al (2020) on how glyphosate-resistant weeds are triggering more use of herbicides and tillage (in revision), Van Deynze et al (2020 in prep) on how butterfly populations have responded to different classes of pesticides Van Deynze et al (2020 in prep) on how timeliness of pest control affects farmer choices on whether to custom hire or do it themselves.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? A.1. Understand and enhance farmer decisions on agricultural technology and management practices: Crop management in the context of surrounding landscape and evolving climate. Given evidence (cited in the project proposal) that crop productivity is influenced by surrounding landscapes, in 2018-19 I undertook an experiment, conducted by mail survey, to determine the willingness of corn-soybean farmers in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to devote 5% of their largest corn-soybean field to prairie strips. The experiment presented them with a hypothetical 10-yer contract and asked if they would accept the contract at a specified payment level, with payment levels geared to 50%, 100%, 200%, and 300% of levels offered under the USDA Conservation Reserve Program. We find that 21% of farmers are willing to adopt prairie strips at payments equivalent to average Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) rental rates, corresponding to potential conversion of 90,000 acres on 1.8m acres of cropland. Farmers are likelier to adopt in smaller fields and if they perceive that prairie strips will benefit environmental quality or agricultural productivity. Paper with Zach Luther and Braeden Van Deynze was submitted for journal review. Under the NSF-supported KBS-LTER project on ecology of row crop systems, we are embarking upon a study to see how how farmers perceive the evolving probability of crop yields in response to changing climate and environmental conditions. Some farmers in southwest Michigan have recently invested in more irrigation (apparently to protect against in-season droughts), but other climate risk management options include changing crops, selecting drought-tolerant varieties, changing tillage, and buying crop insurance. Our goal is to elicit their perceptions of changing weather patterns and connect the findings to their intended management response. A.2. Understand and enhance farmer decisions on agricultural technology and management practices: Farmer choices and evolving genetic and information technologies. Farmers adopt conservation and precision agriculture technologies for a variety of reasons. Analyzing results from the 2017 Crop Management Stewardship Project, we find that farmer objectives are important drivers of adoption choices, notably environmental attitudes for conservation practices and status-seeking attitudes for precision agriculture practices. We find too that farm type matters; livestock farmers are less inclined to adopt precision crop management technologies, but more inclined to adopt conservation practices such as cover crops that can generate forage while absorbing more manure. These results just appeared in Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (Oct 2020) by Zachary Luther, Braeden Van Deynze, and Scott Swinton. Field crops that are genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate herbicide now dominate the U.S. corn, soybean, and cotton landscape. However, the resulting heavy use of glyphosate is causing growing numbers of weed species to develop herbicide resistance. Using data from 1998-2016 for over 20,000 corn and soybean growers east of the Rockies, we that the spread of glyphosate resistant weeds causes increased use of alternative herbicides and increased use of tillage. Using the revised universal soil loss equation, we calculate the resulting increase in soil erosion and estimate its cost to society. Paper by PhD-graduate Braeden Van Deynze, myself, Prof. David Hennessy is in revision for resubmission at Am. J. Agric. Econ. Naturally occurring pesticide resistance is a problem also for Bt cotton in Pakistan. In research with PhD student Abubakr Ayesh, we are finding that between evolving resistance of cotton bollworms and poor information about Bt protein content in commercial seed, Pakistani cotton farmers in the Sind and Punjab regions obtain no pesticide savings benefit and scant yield benefit compared to not using Bt (AAEA selected paper 2020). B.1. Policy tools to encourage improved environmental performance from agriculture: Incentives for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. In the face of increasing crop loss to soybean sudden death syndrome (SDS), farmers have begun adopting fluopyram-treated soybean seed. In an analysis with PhD student Amy Baetsen-Young, we estimate the economic net benefits from public investment in evaluation and diffusion of information about this privately developed pest control technology. Results indicate that public net benefits exceed $1 billion, indicating that such public-private partnership in research development, testing, and diffusion is worthwhile (Baetsen-Young, Childers, and Swinton, Plant Disease 2020 [in press]). Extending our scope from farm management to forest management in northern Michigan and Wisconsin, we project the economic quantity of logging residues (wood chips) for bioenergy use that would be supplied at various prices (Swinton, Dulys, and Klammer, Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy 2020 [in press]). The combined statistical and qualitative analysis indicates that forest managers in the region would require significantly higher energy prices than currently prevail in order to produce and deliver 50% or more of timber residues to bioenergy demand points. B.2. Policy tools to encourage improved environmental performance from agriculture: Information provision for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. In a new article with Sarah Cusser and others at the Kellogg Biological Station, we explore the number of years required to be able statistically to detect environmental and profitability benefits resulting from converting a corn-soybean-wheat rotation from conventional chisel tillage to no-till. Taking multiple cuts at different time "windows" from a 29-year-old field trial, we find that it takes ten years for profitability results to stabilize in the positive net gain area where they end up after 29 years (Cusser, Bahlai, Swinton, Robertson, and Haddad, Global Change Biology 2020).

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Cusser, S., C. Bahlai, S.M. Swinton, G.P. Robertson, N.M. Haddad. 2020. Long-term research needed to avoid spurious trends in sustainability attributes of no-till. Global Change Biology 26(6): 3715-3725.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Luther, Z.., S.M. Swinton, and B. Van Deynze 2020. What drives voluntary adoption of farming practices that can abate nutrient pollution? Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 75(5): 640-650.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2020 Citation: Swinton, S.M., F. Dulys, and S.S.H. Klammer. 2020 (in press). Why biomass residue is not as plentiful as it looks: case study on economic supply of logging residues. Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy. (Early View)
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ayesh, A. and S.M. Swinton. 2020. Does a lemon technology for pest control act as a substitute for insecticides? Selected paper at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association virtual annual meeting. August 10-11, 2020.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Van Deynze. B., Swinton, S.M., and D. Hennessy. 2019. Zombie weeds are coming for Americas fields. Michigan Farm News, October 25, 201
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Swinton, S.M.. 2020 Opportunity cost of bioenergy feedstocks. Presentation at Organized Symposium on Economic and Environmental Implications of Biofuels, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association virtual annual meeting. August 17, 2020.

Progress 11/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:University students, researchers, policy professionals, and members of the public with interest in economic aspects of environmental management in agriculture. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During 2018-19, I provided graduate training and research mentorship as major professor (advisor) to Braeden VanDeynze (PhD student) (2015-19) Zachary Luther (MS student) (2018-19) Peijyun Lu (PhD student) (2019). I provided research mentorship via graduate guidance committee service to the following students: April Athnos (PhD student) (2019) Amy Baetson-Young (PhD student) (2016-19; degree completed 2019) Gregory Boudreaux (MS student) (2019) Yuyuan Che (PhD student) (2019) Yingjie Li (PhD student) (2019) How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated through: Professional journals (2 new articles published during 2018-19, reported elsewhere): Major disciplinary journals in agricultural and applied economics such as Annual Review of Resource Economics Major subject matter, multidisciplinary journals, such as Biomass and Bioenergy Professional meeting & workshop presentations, including oral, papers and posters at: Science of Team Science 2019 Conference, Lansing, MI, May 20-23, 2019. International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research 23rd annual conference, Ravello, Italy, June 4-7, 2019. Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting, Atlanta, GA, July 21-23 2019. Energy and Environmental Economics Day, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, August 20, 2019. KBS-LTER (Long-term Ecological Research) All Scientists meeting, Hickory Corners, MI, Sept. 19-20, 2019. Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics workshop, University of Illinois, Sept 28-29, 2019. Invited seminars to scholarly audiences at: Kellogg Biological Station weekly seminar, Michigan State University, Hickory Corners, MI, Aug. 30, 2019. News media articles in: Michigan Farm News (2019) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During 2019-20, we plan to analyze in fuller detail the willingness of crop farmers to dedicate 5% of corn or soybean fields to prairie strips. This will entail building a multiple regression econometric model that includes the variety of decision drivers beyond simply the incentive payment offered. In a study using the 1998-2016 data on agrichemical and seed use, we will partner with an entomologist researcher at Georgetown University to analyze the effect of changing pesticide use on the abundance of species diversity of butterflies in the Eastern United States. In 2020, we plan to begin a study of how Michigan farmers perceive the evolving probability of crop yields in response to changing climate and environmental conditions. Along with those changing perceptions or yield risk, we will elicit their plans to manage that risk via changes in crops planted, varietal traits, soil and water management, and insurance policies. We plan to push several papers that were drafted in the current year toward publication, including: Swinton et al (2019) on timber residue supply, Luther et al (2019) on farmer adoption of precision agriculture and conservation practices, Baetsen-Young et al (2019) on economic impact of fluopyram to control soybean sudden death syndrome, Cusser et al (2019) on analysis of study duration needed to detect long-term benefits from adoption of no-till crop farming.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? A.1. Understand and enhance farmer decisions on agricultural technology and management practices: Crop management in the context of surrounding landscape and evolving climate. Given evidence (cited in the project proposal) that crop productivity is influenced by surrounding landscapes, in 2018-19 I undertook an experiment, conducted by mail survey, to determine the willingness of corn-soybean farmers in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to devote 5% of their largest corn-soybean field to prairie strips. The experiment presented them with a hypothetical 10-yer contract and asked if they would accept the contract at a specified payment level, with payment levels geared to 50%, 100%, 200%, and 300% of levels offered under the USDA Conservation Reserve Program. Analysis of results is underway with grad students Zachary Luther and Braeden VanDeynze. A.2. Understand and enhance farmer decisions on agricultural technology and management practices: Farmer choices and evolving genetic and information technologies. Farmers adopt conservation and precision agriculture technologies for a variety of reasons. Analyzing results from the 2017 Crop Management Stewardship Project, we find that the drivers of technology adoption differ from one technology to another. Apart from standard factors that affect farmer technology choice decisions, we find that farmer objectives are important drivers of adoption choices, notably environmental attitudes for conservation practices and status-seeking attitudes for precision agriculture practices. We find too that farm type matters; livestock farmers are less inclined to adopt precision crop management technologies, but more inclined to adopt conservation practices such as cover crops that can generate forage while absorbing more manure. These results are summarized in a just-completed manuscript by grad students Zachary Luther, Braeden Van Deynze, and Scott Swinton. Field crops that are genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate herbicide now dominate the U.S. corn, soybean, and cotton landscape. However, the resulting heavy use of glyphosate is causing growing numbers of weed species to develop herbicide resistance. Using data from 1998-2016 for corn and soybean growers east of the Rockies, we are studying how the spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds affects weed control. The as-yet-unpublished results indicate that the spread of glyphosate resistant weeds causes increased use of alternative herbicides and increased use of tillage. Using the revised universal soil loss equation, we calculate the resulting increase in soil erosion and estimate its cost to society. (Research with grad student Braeden Van Deynze and Prof. David Hennessy.) B.1. Policy tools to encourage improved environmental performance from agriculture: Incentives for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. In the face of increasing crop loss to soybean sudden death syndrome (SDS), farmers have begun adopting fluopyram-treated soybean seed. In an analysis with PhD student Amy Baetsen-Young, we estimate the economic net benefits from public investment in evaluation and diffusion of information about this privately developed pest control technology. Results in a just-completed manuscript indicate that public net benefits exceed $1 billion, indicating that such public-private partnership in research development, testing, and diffusion is worthwhile (Baetsen-Young, Childers, and Swinton, 2019). Extending our scope from farm management to forest management, we published a study describing the factors that shape the willingness of various types of landowners in northern Michigan and Wisconsin to supply timber residues for bioenergy purposes (Dulys et al, 2019, Biomass and Bioenergy). In a follow-on manuscript, we project the economic quantity of timber residues (wood chips) for bioenergy use that would be supplied at various prices (Swinton, Dulys, and Klammer 2019). The combined statistical and qualitative analysis indicates that forest managers in the region would require significantly higher energy prices than currently prevail in order to produce and deliver 50% or more of timber residues to bioenergy demand points. B.2. Policy tools to encourage improved environmental performance from agriculture: Information provision for adoption of environmentally beneficial farm management practices. The spread of precision agriculture is enabling crop farms to optimize input applications, along the way, reducing excess application of agrochemicals that could do environmental harm. In a review article in the Annual Review of Resource Economics (2019) with three European colleagues, we provide a framework for understanding the types of profitability and environmental benefits that are emerging from adoption of these information technologies. In a recently completed manuscript with Sarah Cusser and others at the Kellogg Biological Station, we explore the number of years required to be able statistically to detect environmental and profitability benefits resulting from converting a corn-soybean-wheat rotation from conventional chisel tillage to no-till. Taking multiple cuts at different time "windows" from a 29-year-old field trial, we find that it takes ten years for profitability results to stabilize in the positive net gain area where they end up after 29 years (Cusser, Bahlai, Swinton, Robertson, and Haddad, 2019).

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Dulys-Nusbaum, E., S.S.H. Klammer, and S.M. Swinton. 2019. How Willing Are Different Types of Landowner to Supply Hardwood Timber Residues for Bioenergy? Biomass and Bioenergy 122: 45-52.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Finger, R., S.M. Swinton, N. El Benni, and A. Walter, 2019. Precision Farming at the Nexus of Agricultural Production and the Environment. Annual Review of Resource Economics 11: 313-335.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2019 Citation: Van Deynze, B., S.M. Swinton, and L. Ries 2019. The Butterfly Effect: Do Farms Do Harm? Selected paper oral presentation at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting. Atlanta, GA, July 21-23, 2019.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Luther, Z., S.M. Swinton, and B. Van Deynze 2019. What Drives Voluntary Adoption of Farming Practices that Can Abate Nutrient Pollution? Selected paper oral presentation at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association annual meeting. Atlanta, GA, July 21-23, 2019.
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Swinton, S., Z. Luther, and B. Van Deynze. 2019. Precision Agriculture Enters Main Stream. Michigan Farm News. August 15, 2019.