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Agribusiness scholarship emphasizes an integrated view of the food system that extends from research and input supply through production, processing, and distribution to retail outlets and the consumer. This article traces development of agribusiness scholarship over the past century by describing nine significant areas of contribution by our profession:(1) economics of cooperative marketing and management, (2) design and development of credit market institutions, (3) organizational design, (4) market structure and performance analysis, (5) supply chain management and design, (6) optimization of operational efficiency, (7) development of data and analysis for financial management, (8) strategic management, and (9) agribusiness education.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to develop a dynamic, stochastic, mechanistic simulation model of a dairy business to evaluate the cost and benefit streams coinciding with technology investments. The model was constructed to embody the biological and economical complexities of a dairy farm system within a partial budgeting framework. A primary objective was to establish a flexible, user-friendly, farm-specific, decision-making tool for dairy producers or their advisers and technology manufacturers. Design/methodology/approach-The basic deterministic model was created in Microsoft Excel (Microsoft, Seattle, Washington). The @Risk add-in (Palisade Corporation, Ithaca, New York) for Excel was employed to account for the stochastic nature of key variables within a Monte Carlo simulation. Net present value was the primary metric used to assess the economic profitability of investments. The model was composed of a series of modules, which synergistically provide the necessary inputs for profitability analysis. Estimates of biological relationships within the model were obtained from the literature in an attempt to represent an average or typical US dairy. Technology benefits were appraised from the resulting impact on disease incidence, disease impact, and reproductive performance. In this paper, the model structure and methodology were described in detail. Findings-Examples of the utility of examining the influence of stochastic input and output prices on the costs of culling, days open, and disease were examined. Each of these parameters was highly sensitive to stochastic prices and deterministic inputs. Originality/value-Decision support tools, such as this one, that are designed to investigate dairy business decisions may benefit dairy producers.

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Various models or explanations of structural change in agriculture are presented including the technology model, the human capital model, the financial model, the institutional (structureconduct-performance) model, and the sociological vamily firm) model. Each of these models provides useful insights into the forces that are resulting in changes in the size, specialization, resource ownership and financing, and sectoral linkages in agriculture.The structure of an industry or a sector includes many dimensions: (1) the size distribution of firms; (2) the technology and production characteristics of those firms including type of activity and level of specialization; (3) the characterization of the workforce (both managerdentreprenews and employees) including age, education, experience, skill level, part-time versus full-time status, etc. ; (4) the resource ownership and financing pattern including tenancy, leasing and debdequity sources and relationships; (5) the inter-and intrasector linkages including contract production and vertical and horizontal integration.The focus of this discussion will be on the key forces that shape the structure of the farm and agribusiness sector. The discussion will focus on five "models" of structural change-the technology model, the human capital model, the financial model, the institutional model, and the sociological (family firm) model. These models are all partial models at best (and they are overlapping and not mutually exclusive), but together they provide a relatively complete explanation of the factors that influence structural change and the interrelationships among these factors.