Global agricultural markets reflect the increasing complexity of modern consumer demand for food safety and quality. This demand has triggered changes throughout the food industry, and led to greater opportunities for product differentiation and the potential to add value to raw commodities. Greater differentiation and value adding over time has in turn dramatically changed the price spread or marketing bill between the farm value of products and the retail value. Thus a significantly greater percentage of the final price paid by consumers is now garnered down chain rather than up chain over the last 20 years. This apparent shifting of value creation or addition, as measured by the marketing margin, has invigorated empirical questions as to where, and how much value, is created along the agri-food value chain. First we define value creation/adding, and then we estimate the economic value added for 454 firms. We validate our findings by creating and employing three additional value creation measures – the modified economic value added, the creation or destruction of value, and the persistence of value creation. Finally we estimate value creation at each node of the value chain, measure the relative differences among firms and nodes, and estimate a model measuring the drivers of value adding.

Although the system for producing yellow corn grain is well established in the US, its role among other biofeedstock alternatives to petroleum-based energy sources has to be balanced with its predominant purpose for food and feed as well as economics, land use, and environmental stewardship. We model land usage attributed to corn ethanol production in the US to evaluate the effects of anticipated technological change in corn grain production, ethanol processing, and livestock feeding through a multi-disciplinary approach. Seven scenarios are evaluated: four considering the impact of technological advances on corn grain production, two focused on improved efficiencies in ethanol processing, and one reflecting greater use of ethanol co-products (that is, distillers dried grains with solubles) in diets for dairy cattle, pigs, and poultry. For each scenario, land area attributed to corn ethanol production is estimated for three time horizons: 2011 (current), the time period at which the 15 billion gallon cap for corn ethanol as per the Renewable Fuel Standard is achieved, and 2026 (15 years out).

There have been successful interventions fortifying staple foods to mobilize micronutrients as well as agricultural efforts to raise yields of staple foods to increase food availability. Zambia serves as an interesting case study because since 1961 there has been a notable decline in the availability of animal source foods (ASFs) and pulses and a significant increase in the supply of cassava and vegetable oils. The shift in food availability was partly attributed to the agricultural success in high-yielding and drought-resistant varieties that made cassava and oil crops more affordable and readily available. In this research, we explore another policy strategy that involves ASF as a mechanism to help remedy micronutrient inadequacies in a population. A scenario modeling analysis compares the changes in the nutrient profile of the Zambian diet through adding either staple plant source foods (PSFs) or ASFs. The scenarios under study involve the addition of (1) 18 fl oz of whole cow’s milk; (2) 60 g of beef, 30 g of chicken, and 5 g of beef liver; (3) milk plus meat; or (4) 83 g of maize flour, 123 g of cassava, and other staple PSF, that is, isocaloric to the “milk + meat” group. The findings alert program planners and policy makers to the value of increasing the availability, accessibility, and utilization of ASF to simultaneously address multiple nutrient deficiencies, as well as the nutrition challenges that remain when expanding the availability of plant-based staples.

Empirical evidence shows complementarity between maize and soybean as a sustained agricultural system across North and South America as well as Eastern Europe. The potential application to sub-Saharan Africa motivates this literature review. Maize is one of the most important crops on the African subcontinent, accounting for over half of daily caloric intake in some regions. However, continuous cropping of maize has led to extensive degradation of soil and decrease in crop productivity and endangers household food and nutritional security. The cultivation of soybean holds great promise in improving agricultural systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Introducing soy into rotation with maize is a method to diversify diets, better nutritional status, reduce abiotic and biotic stresses, and improve soil fertility, while enhancing crop productivity and generating more income for farmers. However, limited access to extension services and other sources of technical support constrains adoption of the more complex rotation cropping system involving a new crop, soybean. Rotating soybean with maize too challenges farmers as there is not a specific prescription that can guide farmers operating across Africa’s diverse agroecological environments. Finally, soybean is an input-intensive crop requiring significant investment at planting, which may not allow small holders with limited resources and no access to credit.

I use three case studies in this essay to show that policies promoting commercial soy production in the tropics involve a Faustian Bargain. Faustian Bargains, strictly defined, comprise a conflict one faces when a decision-maker trades one’s “soul” for greater knowledge. Applied more liberally in the context of soybean development, commercial crop technologies, like soybean, offer the potential for improved labor productivity over traditional staples, and as a result, they can provide a pathway out of poverty traps. However, they also may cause considerable changes to traditional norms, cultivation practices, market relationships, natural resources, and the natural environment, hence, the Faustian Bargain. Relevant to this special issue of Tropical Conservation Science, the three case study examples demonstrate how and why commercial crop production requires a shift to intensive input usage. Thus, promoting commercial crops means introducing chemical fertilizers and herbicides into environments where heretofore traditional methods involved little or no inputs other than labor. The Faustian framework involves the tradeoff between potentially greater economic opportunities, but at a cost to traditional norms, practices, and potentially the natural environment.