Helping Michigan Agriculture Adjust to Changes in Market Forces, Regulatory Requirements, Climate, and Evolving Biological and Digital Understandings

These objectives relate to the AgBioresearch research priority areas of "Enhancing Profitability in Agriculture and Natural Resources", "Food and Health", and "Secure Food and Fiber System". The relationship to "Food and Health" is a relationship between livestock production and human health.A large number of objectives are enumerated but each reflects the economic component of a multidisciplinary team approach to a problem. One phase of the research will be to narrow the focus as the research process evolves.There are four themes: (1) mitigation and adaptation to climate change in Michigan's tree fruit industry, particularly tart cherries; (2) the economics of tree fruit and berry orchard replacement strategies and new orchard design and management systems; (3) the economics of modifications of cropping systems, particularly those involving potatoes and corn, soybeans, and wheat; (4) an evaluation of a casual hypothesis that has been proposed in the literature relating infant death to livestock production.Specific objectives include investigating:The economic sustainability of alternative mitigation and adaptation strategies for farms and members of the tart cherry value chain to alternative climate change scenarios developed by climatologists.The international impacts of climate change scenarios on location of production and trade on the tart cherry sector.The economics of alternative tree fruit and berry replacement strategies.The economics of newer tree fruit design and management systems.The economics of alternative crop rotations for systems containing potatoes and systems containing corn, soybeans, and wheat.The economics of variable rate planting of soybeans vs. conventional planting regimes, an application in precision agriculture / site specific site specific crop management (SSCM)The relationship between of deaths in babies in the first year of life with the level of nearby livestock production.The potential program choices and risk management strategies for Michigan farms producing corn, soybeans and wheat that will result from the design of the 2018 "farm bill".