Examining Contemporaneous Farm and County Losses Using Farm Level Data

Characteristics of farm level yield and revenue loss that is systemic with yield and revenue loss at the county, state, and U.S. level are examined using farm yields from the Illinois and Kansas farm business management associations. The data begins with 1972. Share of yield and revenue loss systemic with the larger geographical areas declines as the level of loss increases, implying a greater share of larger losses is idiosyncratic to an individual farm. Farm loss systemic with the county generally is larger for Kansas than Illinois farms, which calls into question that county-based programs are less effective for plain states due to the larger size of their counties. Last, for the small set of farms that yields for a crop for all years of the analysis, the correlation between a farm and county yield/revenue deviations had limited ability to explain the share of a farm’s loss that is systemic with a county. This finding suggests that only by examining loss experiences for the farm and the county can the value of county risk management programs be ascertained.