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In this study, we investigate the impact of an increase in farm households' off-farm work on technical efficiency (TE) of U.S. dairies. We present a theoretical framework that implies that an increase in farm household off-farm work decreases TE. We use two nationally-representative samples of U.S. dairies (2010 and 2005 Agricultural Resource Management Surveys) and a parametric approach (stochastic frontier analysis) to empirically test the hypothesis. Results are generally consistent with the hypothesis and show that an increase in off-farm work by the farm household is associated with a significant decrease in TE. In addition, results show that there is a statistically significant difference in TE between small, medium, and large farms. Small farms are associated with significantly higher off-farm work and have lower TE than large farms, which implies that less off-farm work by households with larger farms is at least partially responsible for the evidence of economies of scale in the U.S. dairy industry.

There has been sustained interest from both environmental regulators and livestock associations to expand the use of anaerobic digester (AD) technology to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. However, the generally profitable practice of codigesting off-farm organic waste could increase nitrogen and phosphorus content to the farm and exacerbate nutrient over-application concerns near large animal operations. We examine the economic feasibility of a broad set of dairy waste management systems composed of two technology groups that mitigate air and water pollution: an AD system that includes either animal waste input or combination animal/off-farm organic waste codigestion input and either compressed natural gas (CNG) or combined heat and power (CHP) output; and a filtration system that includes fiber separation, nutrient separation, and/or water recovery. We conclude that AD setups without codigestion are only economically feasible under limited conditions, but scenarios which use codigestion have the potential to contribute to nutrient over-application without nutrient separation technology. Trends for CNG and CHP match closely. Net present value (NPV) is greatest for AD with CNG scenarios. Estimated NPV for AD with CNG and environmental credits is $1.8 million and $39.7 million for dairies with 1600 and 15,000 wet cow equivalents, respectively. For these firm sizes, the addition of codigestion contributes $4.8 million and $47.3 million, respectively, to estimated NPV. Nutrient separation and water recovery both lead to decreases in scenario NPV with codigestion, but with the right policies, dairy owners may be willing to adopt AD with nutrient separation.

From May to November most romaine lettuce shipments in the United States come from California’s Central Coast region, whereas from December to April most come from the Yuma, Arizona, region. During 2017–2018, the 3 outbreaks of Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 in US romaine lettuce all occurred at the tail end of a region’s production season. During the fall 2018 outbreak, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that suppliers begin labeling romaine packaging so that consumers can identify the product’s harvest region. We used publicly available data to show that labels may not avert many illnesses in future outbreaks but may reduce suppliers’ financial losses and reduce food loss. Market data available during both 2018 outbreak investigations showed that there was no romaine production from one of the 2 regions when the first illness onset occurred. That is, at the beginning of an outbreak investigation, market data may allow the FDA to quickly rule out an entire production region as a source of contamination.

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