In nine of the last 10 years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that the average funds generated on-farm for farm operators to meet living expenses and debt obligations have been negative. This paper pieces together …
Agricultural expansion and intensification have simplified Earth's landscapes, thereby adversely affecting the biodiversity and ecosystem services that support agricultural production. Field-scale research suggests that increased landcover complexity …
We examine the geographies of agricultural yields in the United States, home to some of the most productive agricultural systems on the planet. We model and map yield divergence from biophysical expectations and regional norms for five major …
We adopt an approach known as bright spots analysis to identify U.S. regions with surprisingly high corn yields given regional expectations, seasonal weather, and soil characteristics. These counties are regional "surprises" that, by definition, …
How has agricultural land use and land cover changed? What are the major policy shifts associated with these changes? We show that U.S. agriculture has gradually trended toward an intensely regulated and specialized system. Crop production is …
This paper projects the race between technologically driven increases in crop yields and changing climatic conditions in the central USA, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. Using the highest, average, and lowest decadal rates of …
This research uses hierarchical Bayesian models to estimate the relationship between landscape-scale agricultural diversity and the yields of corn, soy, and winter wheat in the coterminous United States. We find that the yields of corn and winter …
How does land use change affect agricultural systems?