Browsing by Author "McDowell, F. Howard"

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    An evaluation of production and marketing strategies for eastern Virginia cash grain producers
    Groover, Gordon E. (Virginia Tech, 1988-04-05)
    Eastern Virginia grain producers face production and marketing decisions under conditions of considerable yield and price variability. Traditionally MOTAD and other risk programming models have relied on the variability of historical returns series as a proxy for the risk an individual producer experiences. The mean forecast deviation method provides an alternative to the standard method of calculating deviations for MOT AD models. This method was applied to an eastern Virginia cash grain farm to provide a farm plan based on expected prices during the first week of February. The acreages of com, soybeans, and small grains were specified based on soil type, government program participation, sales at harvest, storage, pre-harvest hedging, and post-harvest hedging. The expected farm plans for the 1987 crop year resulted in participation in the government commodity programs at all levels of risk aversion and for each crop and soil type. Elimination of government commodity programs from the model resulted in two major findings: wheat and barley doubled cropped with soybeans preformed well on both soil types and at all levels of risk aversion, and given 1987 expected prices, idling lower quality land was a profitable decision at all levels of risk aversion.
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    Milk movement and plant location for minimizing milk marketing costs in the Southeast
    McDowell, F. Howard; Conner, Maynard C. (Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station, 1982-08)
    Various institutional and economic forces influence the current organizational structure of the dairy industry. Among the institutional forces are various state marketing regulations and commissions, the United States Department of Agriculture with its marketing and pricing policies and agencies, the Federal Trade Commission, and the United States Department of Justice. The economic forces seem to be embodied in new technologies associated with processing and transportation...
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    Technically efficient dairy marketing in the Southeast
    McDowell, F. Howard (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1978)
    The objective of this research was to determine the optimal number, size, and location of fluid bottling and manufacturing plants, under a totally coordinated marketing system, in the southeastern United States. A transshipment model was developed through which economies of size in processing were taken into consideration. Sources of Grade A and B raw milk, fluid consumption centers, each a potential fluid processing site, and potential manufacturing sites were delineated. Quantities supplied or demanded at 1976 levels were estimated for each location. Consumption centers were given the option of being served from distant plants. Transportation costs were calculated from raw sources to processing sites and from processing sites to final demand points. Processing cost functions for both types of plants were specified. The results indicated that, given the data and assumptions, the economies of size in processing are not great enough to offset the diseconomies in transportation to the extent that fluid consumption centers can be served from plants in other locations at a lower total cost. The number of manufacturing plants operated was limited to the number of plants necessary to provide sufficient total processing capacity to manufacture the regional manufactured product requirement. It was concluded that considerable adjustment in the fluid processing sector has taken place with respect to location and number of plants. It was further concluded that once fluid processing locations and quantities are known, that an organization may coordinate only the assembly and manufacturing functions in a manner approaching optimal.