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The subject of health insurance is huge and confusing. When you think about all the various policies accessible, you could not know how to figure out which is the finest one particular for you. It is nonetheless important that you take the time to understand about well being insurance. This is since investing in the appropriate well being insurance policy is very important. The following assistance will support you begin.
If you, or any of your loved ones members, have vision issues, then it is an excellent idea to get optical insurance coverage. This insurance coverage will aid to cover a particular percentage of your eye verify-ups as properly as your contacts or glasses. Vision insurance coverage isn?t mandatory, so some men and women devote less cash by not having this type of coverage.
If your spouse has a well being insurance coverage possibility through an employer, you may have to spend a surcharge to add your wife or husband on your plan. You need to have to figure up the costs for either scenario right here. You may possibly discover that it is cheaper just to have separate insurance coverage policies by means of your personal employers.
If you are getting wellness insurance coverage for the whole loved ones, check for discounts. You will discover that some insurance coverage organizations give discounts if you are producing a group loved ones purchase. Ask the insurer about this and any other discounts just before you agree to purchase any insurance coverage policy.
The way you handle your well being care insurance may possibly truly earn you tax breaks about April. Not everyone is conscious of this truth, but the quantity of cash you spend in for health insurance premiums can in fact be claimed on your taxes. The price of covering your deductible, co-pays and prescriptions are also tax deductions. Federal and state taxes are distinct, so it is greatest to check the guidelines.
Speak to your medical doctor and see if there is any service that you can do for them and use this to barter. She had her headaches cured, and he got a site!
Consider exactly where your physicians fall in with your wellness insurance circumstances. If your doctor is not covered by your HMO, the organization will charge you further to continue to see him or her.
If searching for health insurance coverage has you feeling defeated, employ the help of a broker who specializes in insurance coverage. An insurance broker will assist you uncover the best well being insurance at a great price tag. Your insurance broker will be well aware of state regulations. Not all insurance brokers are the very same, so appear by way of critiques and pricing just before picking one particular.
Since each state varies in regard to private wellness care rules and laws, make positive you know what applies in your personal locale. This info is readily offered on the web for all states. You require to be familiar with your state?s variations and exemptions when you seek new wellness insurance coverage.
As you can see, even though it is a complex location you can understand a lot about wellness insurance coverage. Take the time and learn items from these who know and those who have lived by means of the experience. By applying the guidelines laid out right here, you can make wiser and smarter decisions relating to health insurance coverage.
A team from Chuo University, has reportedly developed a hybrid SSD that's reportedly 11 times faster than your average solid state unit. Combining NAND Flash with ReRAM, the magical union consumes 93 percent less power and lasts nearly seven times as long as pure-NAND products. Despite the high cost of ReRAM, if it enables data centers to save on continuously replacing worn-out SSDs, and could very be rapidly adopted if worked into a commercial system. The findings will be unveiled at the Hawaii Symposium on VSLI Circuits through tomorrow -- after which time, the team can reasonably expect to spend some time on the beach.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS: Testimony from three more accusers Thursday included some of the most graphic details of the trial's four days and gave the term "tickle monster" a dark, almost nefarious meaning. Jurors heard one accuser say he spent more than 100 nights at Jerry Sandusky's home, sleeping on a waterbed in a basement room he thought was soundproof because no one heard him scream when he was assaulted. Another accuser told jurors Sandusky called himself the "tickle monster" before embracing him in a shower.
ODDS AND ENDS: A small group of family and friends has been sitting near Sandusky during the trial this week save for one key figure, his wife, Dottie Sandusky. Her absence has been noted, but it's not a sign of her sentiment toward her husband or an attempt to avoid the testimony that has taken place. She's not allowed to be in the court. Judge John Cleland asked that those who will testify to be sequestered from the courtroom, and she's on the defense team's witness list and could be called next week.
WHAT'S NEXT: A three-day weekend. The court has recessed, but prosecutors have not rested their case, which means they could still call more witnesses on Monday. Sandusky lawyer Joe Amendola said "I think we'll start Monday," signaling that if the prosecution rests at the start of next week, the judge is not likely to delay the next phase of the trial.
Radiation treatment for skin cancer is done with the goal of removing cancerous cells to prevent the spread of cancer into other cells in the body. While it can have some complications, radiation treatment can also be a fantastic source to stop the spread of cancer growth. The following benefits of radiation treatment will help you see the good in your cancer treatment and create a positive attitude within that can only help your condition.
One benefit of radiation treatment for skin cancer is that it destroys cancer cells found at the edge of tumors. Surgeries can remove tumors while missing the tumor edges. If cancer cells remain in the body, the odds are higher that the cells will multiply and grow, creating a cancer problem once more. The goal of radiation is to fight cancer where surgeries cannot go. Thus, radiation can take care of the ?unfinished business? of removing cancer cells from the body. Any means that can be used to eliminate cancer cells while maintaining the life of the patient is a useful one, indeed.
Another benefit of radiation treatment for skin cancer is that it can destroy cancerous cell growth without damaging normal skin tissues. Skin cancer patients desire their skin cancer to be treated without damaging normal, healthy body tissue. If healthy body tissue remains in the body, then the body can begin to repair its cell damage and ensure longevity. When normal skin tissues are damaged, the cell damage doubles and leads to more physical complications. Thus, radiation allows skin cancer patients to have both sides of the coin: the destruction of cancer cells and the growth of normal skin tissue at the same time.
Lastly, radiation treatment for skin cancer works in conjunction with other cancer treatments to fight skin cancer. Often, cancer can seem impossible to beat when only one method is used. However, when some cancer attack methods are used at once, they can slow down and even halt the progress of cancerous cell growth in the body. The saying of ?two is better than one? rings true when it comes to fighting cancer. Those who can use more than one cancer fight method have a greater chance of cancer survival than those who use one method.
American Cancer Center in Illinois offers radiation treatment for skin cancer to its skin cancer patients. If you stand in need of radiation treatment or want to discuss options for radiation treatment for skin cancer, visit ACCRT.com.
NEW YORK (AP) ? Swiss bank UBS AG may have lost as much as $350 million due to technical glitches on the Nasdaq stock exchange the day Facebook went public, according to reports published Friday.
CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that UBS is considering legal action against Nasdaq as a result.
UBS spokeswoman Karina Byrne confirmed that the bank lost money due to Nasdaq's technical issues when the social networking company's stock began trading on May 18.
Byrne declined to disclose the amount but said it was "not material" to the bank. She said UBS has not taken legal action but is weighing its options for recovering its losses.
"Given the size of our U.S. equities business and our role as a major market maker, UBS was affected by these issues, as we believe other market participants may have been," Byrne said in a statement.
Nasdaq declined comment on the reports Friday.
The $350 million figure dwarfs previous estimates for the combined losses resulting from technical glitches at Nasdaq during Facebook's first day of trading. This week, the exchange said it would hand out $40 million in cash and credit to reimburse investment firms.
Facebook Inc.'s initial public stock offering was one of the most widely anticipated market debuts in years. But it quickly turned chaotic.
The opening was delayed by half an hour. Then, technical problems kept many investors from buying shares in the morning, or selling them later in the day, or even knowing whether their orders went through. Some investors complained they were left holding shares they didn't want.
According to CNBC and the Journal, UBS placed an order for 1 million shares but did not receive confirmations and repeated the order several times. So it ended up with much more stock than it intended.
Facebook's stock originally priced at $38 and closed that first day at $38.23, disappointing those hoping for a first-day surge. Nasdaq has said it was embarrassed by the glitches but that they didn't contribute to the underwhelming returns.
It's been a whirlwind of seeing the sights and meeting a lot of nice and interesting people but now it's time for the games to start! I took in pre-match trainings for both Poland and Greece ahead of the opening game of Euro 2012 in the majestic National Stadium and they both look loose and ready to go. However, it's hard to bet against Poland in this game. Their whole country has been waiting 5 years to have this moment, which is when they got named as one of the co-hosts along with Ukraine, and I would very, very surprised if they let this opportunity pass them by.
Also, if Poland loses, then everyone here is going to be in a bad mood and my trip won't be half as fun so, for selfish reasons, I'm pulling for them to do well. Of course, the country of Greece could use a boost as well since I just read that 1 out of 2 Greeks lives in poverty due to their economic collapse so a win by their beloved national team would go a long way to alleviate some of their problems, if only for a short while. So I'm torn, who should I choose?...Haha, who am I kidding? I'm not really torn because it's only about what is best for me and my trip so let's go Poland!
For more of my blogs, videos, and tweets, come back here and here only for your "The Euros According To Jimmy Conrad" fix.
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Follow Jimmy Conrad on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jimmyconrad_com
Nowadays, with the evolvement of internet marketing, websites are growing rapidly because it provides great benefit as well as affordability to customers. Most of the trusted online retailers and ecommerce shopping cart application solution stores would not have significantly knowledge about product sales taxation and they believe there is absolutely no sales tax about on the internet selling online. Nevertheless the reality is totally different. On the web sales are usually dealt with same as your bricks-and-mortar sales (buy from local merchants) and the sales are usually taxable. If trusted online stores don?t collect sales tax coming from customers, company is to blame for remitting the Use levy on online buying directly to their state.
Sales tax service Automobile on the internet seller offers bodily presence in the usa say for example a store, stockroom, business offices, or even sales rep soliciting revenue, owner must collect Make use of tax from their customers on these online net sales.But each condition has legal guidelines determining the ?engagement of economic inside state? to determine whether or not a business has nexus. These kind of laws alter among states, and many on-line online business merchants find themselves liable to pay out overdue sales tax with huge fines in a few states. Sales tax talking to The aim of imposing revenue and employ taxes is always to develop a level stage both for in-state and out-of-state stores. Sales & use taxes are intake taxes and gathered through consumers. Sales impose is collected following your retail sale made regarding tangible personalized property or particular solutions at the point of sale by way of a store store. Employ tax is due upon the storage, take advantage of or consumption of obvious personal property and even of certain companies when sales tax has not been paid. Use taxes is a complementary tax about purchases made out of out-of-state retailers without getting the particular sales tax. Currently, you have to be able to know how sophisticated the rules and also restrictions of sales & employ taxes are usually. Unlike income tax where firms pay tax inside net income, there is no tax liability if an corporation does not make a net gain. Sales tax is due for the selling price even if a company sells the merchandise confused. The sale tax costs range from 6% to 15.5% depending on the state the spot that the shipment of the rucksacks are delivered. The net income for that business is eroded through such relevant duty rate.
For more information about Sales tax preparation visit our website.
This article was prepared for you by TylerKCoate, one of our 'Authors'. Visit this authors profile page and learn more about them & the articles they write.
Sen. Ran Paul endorsed Mitt Romney for president this week, even though his father Ron Paul has not formally dropped out of the race. Publicly backing Romney at this point ? though it?s left many libertarians steaming ? could help him in the long run.
By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / June 9, 2012
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, who endorsed the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney this week, hosts a town hall meeting Jan. 11 in Murray, Ky.
John Wright/The Paducah Sun/AP
Enlarge
Why did Rand Paul forsake his dad Ron Paul for Mitt Romney?
Well, perhaps ?forsake? is too strong a word. We?re not talking about political patricide here, nothing remotely Oedipal. They?re both still on the libertarian fringe of the Republican Party, like-minded on the issues their brand of conservatism cares about.
But Rand Paul, the freshman US Senator from Kentucky, did endorse presumptive GOP presidential nominee Romney over his father, the US Congressman (and party gadfly) from Texas. And it?s caused quite a stir within the Libertarian Party, which laments the younger Paul?s ?betrayal? of his father?s principles.
?No true libertarian, no true friend of liberty, and no true blue Tea Partier could possibly even consider, much less actually endorse or approve of, the Father of Obamacare, Big Government tax and spender, Republican Mitt Romney,? the Libertarian Party exclaimed on its website Friday.
Are you a true Ron Paul supporter? Take our quiz!
What really gripes Libertarians is that when he ran for the US Senate, ?many of his fund-raising appeals were sent to the donors and supporters of his father?. designed to convince Ron?s supporters that the apple doesn?t fall far from the tree. That Rand was, like his legendary father, a steadfast champion of liberty.?
Although he?s no longer actively campaigning, Ron Paul emailed supporters this week acknowledging that he won?t have enough delegates to win the nomination. But he has yet to formally pull out of the race, and he still wants to have a presence at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., in August ? perhaps as a featured speaker or influencing the party's platform. That?s why he continues to gather whatever delegates he can.
Although some of his ardent supporters hold out the possibility of a miracle in Tampa, Rep. Paul has told them to behave there, and he reportedly has a friendly personal relationship with Romney.
So for both Pauls, it makes sense that at some point, Rand Paul was going to have to ease toward the party establishment regarding the presidential race ? whether or not his father ever endorses Romney.
Here?s how Sen. Paul put his Romney endorsement on Fox News the other night: ?You know, my first choice had always been my father. I campaigned for him when I was 11 years old. He's still my first pick. But you know, now that the nominating process is over, I'm happy to announce that I'm going to be supporting Governor Romney.?
It makes a lot of sense politically.
Ron Paul is nearing the end of what has been a remarkable period representing ideas and issues that don?t generate a lot of consistent enthusiasm among Republican leaders ? hammering the Federal Reserve, fighting government intrusion on personal privacy, avoiding virtually all foreign military engagements, denying massive financial support for foreign countries, including Israel.
Rand Paul is at the beginning of what could well be a remarkable career as well, and publicly backing Romney at this point ? though it?s left many libertarians steaming ? could help him in the long run.
?While Paul is a helpful validator for Romney, endorsing Romney also gives Paul a level of mainstream credibility he lacked during his 2010 Senate campaign,? writes Alexander Burns at Politico.com. ?It shows he?s willing to be a team player when it counts, and puts him on the safe side of any speculation over a third-party libertarian push. And that could be crucially important for Paul if he decides to seek the White House himself in 2016 or beyond ? as any number of operatives believe he hopes to do.?
As one Republican strategist told Burns: ?Rand?s endorsement of GOP nominee Mitt Romney clearly shows that in spite of those who try to marginalize him, he has a keen set of political instincts and is very much aware that a successful national run will require more than just his father?s loyal following.?
Rafflesia cantleyi, perhaps better known as the corpse flower for its pungent scent, steals everything from its host. Though each blossom can be in excess of three feet across, the massive buds cannot support themselves, and have no leaves, stalks or true roots. Instead, they rely entirely upon their vine host, Tetrastigma rafflesiae, for survival. Harvard researchers have now discovered that food and water aren?t the only things the corpse flowers steal ? over the course of evolutionary history, Rafflesia has also stolen Tetrastigma?s genes.
The corpse flower and its host have a very intimate relationship. From the start, Rafflesia burrows into the Tetrastigma?s tissues, growing as thread-like strands in direct contact with the surrounding vine?s cells. They are so dependant on their host that the corpse flowers have even lost the ability to make chlorophyll, a requirement for photosynthesis, and thus defy the very nature of being a plant by being unable to produce food from sunlight. These parasites feed off their host vines, growing and growing until they finally erupt, dramatically if briefly, into large, rubbery flowers that stink like rotting flesh.
Somehow, after generations and generations of intimate contact between parasite and host, Rafflesia has ended up with more than the usual parasitic spoils. As a new study published today in BMC Genomics reveals, the parasite expresses dozens of genes that it has co-opted from its host.
The passage of genes from distant lineages, such as the corpse flower and its vine host, is known as horizontal gene transfer. Though common in bacteria (e.g. the transfer of antibiotic resistance), it is much rarer in plants and animals, and we still don?t fully understand how it occurs.
Scientists were first alerted that something was a little off with Rafflesia several years ago. At that time, they were looking at a much bigger picture ? the overall evolution of parasitism in plants ? when they noticed something a little odd in their data. For one of the genes, Rafflesia and similarly deeply-embedded parasites didn?t appear to be related to their closest kin, and instead, appeared to be cousins of their hosts. They hypothesized that such a strange evolutionary relationship could only have evolved in one way: if the parasites had stolen that gene.
Now, the Harvard team has sequenced all of the active genes of both the corpse flower and its host to determine how many genes were stolen. Researchers found that 49 of the proteins expressed by Rafflesia ? 2% of its transcribed genome ? are bootlegged.
?We found that several dozen actively transcribed genes likely originated from the flower?s host,? said Zhenxiang Xi, first author and a graduate student at Harvard University. They also found that most of these genes were incorporated into the parasites own DNA, even replacing similar genes, and another third of Rafflesia?s own genes have evolved to look more like the vine?s.
The genes that were stolen perform a wide variety of cellular functions, including roles in respiration, metabolism, mitochondrial translation, and protein turnover. Their active expression suggests that they play a key role in the parasite?s survival, but the researchers hope that future research will determine exactly how important these genes are and whether they help the parasite evade detection by the host?s immune system. ?These findings might reflect a sort of genomic camouflage, or genomic mimicry for the parasite,? says Charles Davis, co-author and head of the lab at Harvard. A bacterial pathogen of citrus trees, for example, produces a hijacked protein which limits the victim?s ability to detect and remove the intruder.
What?s truly remarkable about this study is that the rate of gene transfer between the vine and its parasitic corpse flower is as high as rates of lateral gene transfer seen in bacteria. Never before have scientists thought that horizontal gene transfer could play such a pivotal role in the evolution of plants and animals, let alone in parasite-host relationships. Given that parasites make up for an astounding 40% of the species on Earth, these findings are bound to transform our understanding of evolutionary processes and how we ended up with the diversity of life we see today.
? Reference: Xi, Z. & et al, (2012). Horizontal transfer of expressed genes in a parasitic flowering plant, BMC Genomics, 13 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-13-227
A spaceship flying over Israel? A satellite or a Russian ballistic missile? An unidentified flying object observed in Middle East countries Thursday night has caused panic, with people calling the police to say they witnessed a UFO.
The mysterious shining object seen in the skies swirled around and looked like smoke, some observers said. The object gave off light and was followed by a smoke trail.
The strange flying phenomenon was also reported in Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and other countries in the region.
The Israeli Defense Forces made a statement following the incident saying they were unaware of any operations in the area.
Some astronomical experts conjectured that the object was a satellite that had exploded in orbit, the Times of Israel reports. The newspaper also quoted a Lebanese report suggesting that the flying item was the remains of a meteorite, with its smashed pieces creating a dust trail that glowed behind it.
Prominent Israeli astronomer Dr. Yigal Pat-El, who is chairman of the Israeli Astronomical Association and an observatory director, told the Ediot Ahronot newspaper it is quite possible that the object was a ballistic missile.
"It most likely spun out of control and its remnants and the fuel was what people saw. It reached a height of 200-300 kilometers and that's why it was seen from so many locations," he told the newspaper.
Mr. Pat-El also said it was not a meteor: ?It looked like a small body that suddenly started to grow and make spiral-like movements."
"After a while, it turned into a cloud?.it looked like an object flying high above ground and then disintegrating," he added.
Suspicions that the shining flying object could be a missile were further fuelled by a Russian Defense Ministry statement saying the country had successfully test-fired a Topol strategic intercontinental ballistic missile.
The launch was made from Russia?s southern Astrakhan region to a testing area in Kazakhstan 3500 km from Israel?s northern border where the object was seen.
The Russian Vesti-24 news channel quoted unnamed military officials as saying the missile hit the practice target despite the fact that it had an unusual flight trajectory.
Similar reports of an object that went spiraling and then disappeared in the skies above Norway?s northern town of Tromso emerged in 2009. The Russian Defense Ministry later admitted it was a failed launch of a Bulava intercontinental missile.
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Kentucky tobacco farmers provide model for deregulation, increased production and profitPublic release date: 7-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Debra Levey Larson dlarson@illinois.edu 217-244-2880 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA If someone agreed to buy your home as is a year from now, you'd likely cancel the kitchen remodel. According to a study at the University of Illinois, Kentucky tobacco farmers adopted that same logic when the tobacco companies announced the buyout also known as the Tobacco Transition Act of 2004 that ended a 66-year-old federal farm program. However, the immediate drop in productivity was followed by startling changes. Over the 10-year period of the study, the number of farms declined from just over 40,000 farms to just over 8,500 farms but productivity increased by 44 percent.
"The quota system limited the amount of tobacco that could be grown," U of I agricultural economist Barrett Kirwan said. "By reducing the supply, farmers were guaranteed their price but it also guaranteed that less productive farms would keep producing because they'd see a price that was higher than what they should have been getting. As soon as that was removed, the less productive farms couldn't survive. There was a massive reallocation and massive shift of production to more productive farms. Those farms weren't realizing their full production potential."
After the buyout, the total acreage farming tobacco in Kentucky declined, but the remaining acres became more productive. They began producing more tobacco per acre on fewer acres. The acreage also relocated to the western part of the state where the soil is more suitable.
"The farmers who stayed began growing specialty tobacco used for cigars or chewing tobacco," Kirwan said. "The niche markets for tobacco haven't been hit as hard as the main cigarette market so without the quota system, restrictions were lifted. Farmers no longer had to grow only burley tobacco; they could diversify in chewing tobacco or cigar tobacco, which are specialty, higher-value tobaccos."
The study found that the most productive farmers were also the most diversified with crops other than just tobacco.
"They didn't have a decline in productivity leading up to the buyout," Kirwan said. "Their tobacco production did not decline, and after the buyout their tobacco productivity rose dramatically and so did their acreage. Their acreage more than doubled."
According to Kirwan, the diversified farms already had equipment, such as drying barns to cure the tobacco. After the quotas were lifted, they could capture the economies of scale.
"A drying barn is the same size whether you're drying a little tobacco or a lot of tobacco, so lifting the quantities allowed them to actually fill the drying barn and become much more efficient," Kirwan said. "Because they already had the invested capital, it became much more profitable for them to stay in tobacco and get bigger than it would have been to switch to a different crop."
Farmers were also able to save due to input reallocations, such as being able to shift fertilizer and electricity and workers.
"You get this double kick from removing the quota," Kirwan said. "When the quota was removed, it allowed resources to move, giving an 8.3 percent increase, but the removal of the quota itself gave 22 percent. That's a total of a 30 percent increase just by removing this regulation."
Kirwan said the findings from the study can be analogous to other commodity programs.
"In agriculture, there have been these types of farm programs for about 80 years and there is some variance, but this was one of the few times that we could see an absolute end to a program with no hope of coming back.
"Other programs may not be as binding as the tobacco program with quota limits, but when we're distorting the market price with subsidies or we're distorting a farmer's production choices by saying, 'If you grow vegetables, then you no longer get subsidies for your corn,' then we're distorting their productivity," Kirwan said.
He noted that the study focused on productivity, not equity. So although the farms were much more productive, it did put many small farmers out of business. He said the findings could help guide policy makers who are deciding whether or not to change quota or subsidy programs.
"They have to weigh this potentially huge efficiency gain with the consequences on the equality side possibly creating fewer small farms. Which is more important? Having a lot of small farms or fewer, more productive farms?
"There are anecdotes that subsidies prop up inefficient farmers who shouldn't be farming anyway, but they are just that, anecdotes," Kirwan said. "By doing this study, we could see just how much more productive the new tobacco farmers were. We looked at the demographic differences in these two groups and confirmed that these new, more productive farmers are young."
###
"Aggregate and Farm-level Productivity Growth in Tobacco; Before and After the Quota Buyout" was published in the American Journal of Agriculture Economics. The article was co-authored by Shinsuke Uchida and T. Kirk White. Some funding was provided by the USDA.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Kentucky tobacco farmers provide model for deregulation, increased production and profitPublic release date: 7-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Debra Levey Larson dlarson@illinois.edu 217-244-2880 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA If someone agreed to buy your home as is a year from now, you'd likely cancel the kitchen remodel. According to a study at the University of Illinois, Kentucky tobacco farmers adopted that same logic when the tobacco companies announced the buyout also known as the Tobacco Transition Act of 2004 that ended a 66-year-old federal farm program. However, the immediate drop in productivity was followed by startling changes. Over the 10-year period of the study, the number of farms declined from just over 40,000 farms to just over 8,500 farms but productivity increased by 44 percent.
"The quota system limited the amount of tobacco that could be grown," U of I agricultural economist Barrett Kirwan said. "By reducing the supply, farmers were guaranteed their price but it also guaranteed that less productive farms would keep producing because they'd see a price that was higher than what they should have been getting. As soon as that was removed, the less productive farms couldn't survive. There was a massive reallocation and massive shift of production to more productive farms. Those farms weren't realizing their full production potential."
After the buyout, the total acreage farming tobacco in Kentucky declined, but the remaining acres became more productive. They began producing more tobacco per acre on fewer acres. The acreage also relocated to the western part of the state where the soil is more suitable.
"The farmers who stayed began growing specialty tobacco used for cigars or chewing tobacco," Kirwan said. "The niche markets for tobacco haven't been hit as hard as the main cigarette market so without the quota system, restrictions were lifted. Farmers no longer had to grow only burley tobacco; they could diversify in chewing tobacco or cigar tobacco, which are specialty, higher-value tobaccos."
The study found that the most productive farmers were also the most diversified with crops other than just tobacco.
"They didn't have a decline in productivity leading up to the buyout," Kirwan said. "Their tobacco production did not decline, and after the buyout their tobacco productivity rose dramatically and so did their acreage. Their acreage more than doubled."
According to Kirwan, the diversified farms already had equipment, such as drying barns to cure the tobacco. After the quotas were lifted, they could capture the economies of scale.
"A drying barn is the same size whether you're drying a little tobacco or a lot of tobacco, so lifting the quantities allowed them to actually fill the drying barn and become much more efficient," Kirwan said. "Because they already had the invested capital, it became much more profitable for them to stay in tobacco and get bigger than it would have been to switch to a different crop."
Farmers were also able to save due to input reallocations, such as being able to shift fertilizer and electricity and workers.
"You get this double kick from removing the quota," Kirwan said. "When the quota was removed, it allowed resources to move, giving an 8.3 percent increase, but the removal of the quota itself gave 22 percent. That's a total of a 30 percent increase just by removing this regulation."
Kirwan said the findings from the study can be analogous to other commodity programs.
"In agriculture, there have been these types of farm programs for about 80 years and there is some variance, but this was one of the few times that we could see an absolute end to a program with no hope of coming back.
"Other programs may not be as binding as the tobacco program with quota limits, but when we're distorting the market price with subsidies or we're distorting a farmer's production choices by saying, 'If you grow vegetables, then you no longer get subsidies for your corn,' then we're distorting their productivity," Kirwan said.
He noted that the study focused on productivity, not equity. So although the farms were much more productive, it did put many small farmers out of business. He said the findings could help guide policy makers who are deciding whether or not to change quota or subsidy programs.
"They have to weigh this potentially huge efficiency gain with the consequences on the equality side possibly creating fewer small farms. Which is more important? Having a lot of small farms or fewer, more productive farms?
"There are anecdotes that subsidies prop up inefficient farmers who shouldn't be farming anyway, but they are just that, anecdotes," Kirwan said. "By doing this study, we could see just how much more productive the new tobacco farmers were. We looked at the demographic differences in these two groups and confirmed that these new, more productive farmers are young."
###
"Aggregate and Farm-level Productivity Growth in Tobacco; Before and After the Quota Buyout" was published in the American Journal of Agriculture Economics. The article was co-authored by Shinsuke Uchida and T. Kirk White. Some funding was provided by the USDA.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.