Impact of Ownership Structure on the Performance of China’s Feed Mill Sector, April 2005

In the decade of the 1990s, China’s feed sector became increasingly privatized, more feed mills opened, and the scale of operation expanded. Capacity utilization remained low and multi-ministerial supervision was still prevalent, but the feed mill sector showed a positive performance overall, posting a growth rate of 11 percent per year. Profit margin over sales was within allowable rates set by the government of China at 3 to 5 percent. Financial efficiency improved, with a 20 percent quicker turnover of working capital. Average technical efficiency was 0.805, as more efficient feed mills increasingly gained production shares. This study finds evidence that the increasing privatization explains the improved performance of the commercial feed mill sector. The drivers that shaped the feed mill sector in the 1990s have changed with China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. With the new policy regime in place, the study foresees that, assuming an adequate supply of soy meal and an excess capacity in the feed mill sector, it is likely that China will allow corn imports up to the tariff rate quota (TRQ) of 7.2 mmt since the in-quota rate is very low at 1 percent. However, when the TRQ is exceeded, the import duty jumps to a prohibitive out-quota rate of 65 percent. With an import duty for meat of only 10 to 12 percent, China would have a strong incentive to import meat products directly rather than bringing in expensive corn to produce meat domestically. This would be further reinforced if structural transformation in the swine sector would narrow the cost differential between domestic and imported pork.

Land Ownership Guide for Watershed Cleanups, March 2006

A river can wander through the land in any way it pleases. People, however, face a few legal restrictions when following rivers, lakes, and streams through privately owned land. Care must be taken not to trespass on private property.

Iowa’s Historic Automobile Roads A National Register Study of Pre-1948 Arterial Highways, 2009

This study of Iowa’s Historic Automobile Roads has been prepared by the Highway Archaeology Program under the terms of an annual cultural resource surveys contract between the Iowa DOT and The University of Iowa. Under this agreement, state transportation funds are appropriated by the Iowa DOT for The University of Iowa Highway Archaeology Program to locate and determine the significance of cultural resources in the area of proposed highway and transportation improvement work. Cultural resources include archaeological, historical, and architectural sites. The study of Iowa’s Historic Automobile Roads reported herein, including archival research and survey, was conducted between June 2002 and June 2007, by Marlin R. Ingalls and Maria F. Schroeder. The University of Iowa Highway Archaeology Program is solely responsible for the content and accuracy of these reports with respect to site location description, interpretation, and recommendations. Duplicate project reports are filed at the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), Community Programs Bureau in Des Moines. Illustrations in this report may have been altered for clarity and sized to fit the page.

Developing Smooth, Quiet, Safe Portland Cement Concrete Pavements, March 2004

The concrete paving industry has spent large amounts of time working to provide safe, quiet, and smooth pavements for the traveling public as their needs and driving habits have changed since the advent of the automobile. During that time, the efforts of research, design, and construction were directed at one of the problems at a time. Current public surveys indicate that the traveling public wishes to have safe, quiet, and smooth pavements. This report identifies the problems remaining in the areas of developing smooth, quiet, and safe portland cement concrete pavement in each pavement we build. It develops the research framework that can be used to bring the existing information together with additional research in each area. The resulting answers can be used in each pavement design for a quiet, safe, and smooth pavement that is also long lasting.

Cooperatives and Contracting in Agriculture: The Case of West Liberty Foods, October 2005

The West Liberty Foods turkey cooperative was formed in 1996 to purchase the assets and assume operations of Louis Rich Foods (an investor-owned processing rm), which, at the time, announced the imminent shutdown of its West Liberty, Iowa, processing facility. We study the creation and performance of this �new generation� cooperative using eld interviews with grower members and company management. We describe changes, before and after the buyout, in the contractual apparatus used for procuring live turkeys, and in the communication requirements, work expectations, and nancial positions of growers. During the private ownership period, most of the inputs (except labor and facilities) were provided by the rm; there was substantial supervision of the growers' actions; growers faced little price and production risk; and growers' equity was due largely to ownership of land and other farm assets. Our interviews reveal that, after cooperative formation, growers were exposed to considerable additional risk; monitoring of growers by the rm was less intensive; grower time and effort commitments to turkey production increased substantially; and a signicant fraction of rm (cooperative) equity came from growers' willingness to leverage their farm and personal assets (and hence indirectly their existing relationships with local lenders). We argue that some of these changes are consistent with a nancial contract where asset pledging and its corollary risk generate higher work effort by growers and a reduction in agency rents. These economies likely compensate for an organizational deadweight loss traditionally associated with cooperative governance.

Planning for Wooded Acreages and Woodlands, August 2005

PM2002B: People own wooded acreages and woodlands for a variety of reasons that may include: timber production, firewood production, recreation, wildlife habitat, aesthetics, and alternative forest products. Most of Iowa’s forestland is privately held, and the majority of ownership is fragmented into an average of ten acres (Forest Reserve Survey, 2004). In fact, the average size of an individual forest or woodlot ownership has been steadily declining for several years due in part to population growth, urban sprawl, and changes in land ownership. Studies indicate that the probability of a sustainable woodlot decreases as the population increases. At the same time, most woodlot owners want to be good stewards and protect and enhance the forest that they own. To achieve this goal, careful forest planning and management is required especially when managing the land for multiple objectives.