Once again, strolling back to the future, this matrix of biomass products was created 20 years ago. It still relevant and ties together the preceding themes nicely on a different level. Outputs are dependent on the inputs, or, y = … Continue reading →
The most successful manure producers are also the most creative manure users. Or at least they are creative in facilitating the use of manure by others. Being awesome is a lot of work. Recall that technology is defined as y=f(x). … Continue reading →
My career has been defined as y = f(x). Technology, and in this case, Outputs, y, are (created from,=,) a function of, f(), inputs, x. In other words, how inputs are combined determines the technology. Corn can be grown with … Continue reading →
In the most recent post, the case was made that in their role as producers, farms transform inputs into outputs more than establish and maintain markets in the final goods and services, retail sector. The 2022 Census of Agriculture also … Continue reading →
The previous post, The Price of Food Dominates Alternative Use Markets, sparked a desire to map out the farm-level activities into feed, fuel, and food. This was an innocent effort and was not successful. The transformations that occur on a … Continue reading →
Manure doesn’t have to be a liability or associated with a 4-letter expletive. Cultural shifts begin with the seminal definition of the issue in question. If the initial definition is negative, options are bound by the limits of the definition. … Continue reading →
In 2008, a major publisher ran a story about where all the biomass feedstocks were. It was a good story that brought attention to biomass as a fuel source. But they used the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) ‘Total Tonnes’ … Continue reading →
Most economic demand today manifests itself in report charts and news as a change over time. But traditional economic supply and demand curves do not have time in them (price x quantity). Demand drives any economy, but it doesn’t look … Continue reading →
Abraham Lincoln commissioned the first census of farm by the Department of Agriculture 180 years ago. Some of the data categories have not changed since then, like specifying a farm of 1 to 9 acres in size. As a culture, … Continue reading →
As a quantitatively trained, free-market economist, I had been shaped to believe buying ‘local’ was a preference that was not cost-effective. But as I grew into a manure visionary and biomass systems economist, bulky and wet materials of limited value … Continue reading →
