The studies in this report analyze the effects of decoupled payments in the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act on recipient households, and assess land, labor, risk management, and capital market conditions that can lead to links between decoupled payments and production...

Nearly all farm business ventures involve financial risk. In some instances, private and public tools used to manage financial risks in agriculture may influence farmers' production decisions. These decisions, in turn, can influence environmental quality. This bulletin summarizes research and...

In the last 25 years, U.S. crop farms have steadily declined in number and grown in average size, as production has shifted to larger operations. Larger farms tend to receive more commodity program payments because most payments are tied to a farm’s current or historical production, but...

Farm income is highly variable due to annual price and yield uncertainties. The federally subsidized crop insurance program is an important tool for managing this risk, and has grown from a relatively modest program to one that encompasses the majority of productive cropland in the country. The...

The first part of this paper presents a simple labor supply and production model wherein farmers with diminishing marginal utility of income derive nonpecuniary benefits from farming. We use the model to show how lump-sum or decoupled government payments could have positive and substantial...

Using a unique farm-level panel data set derived from three U.S. Agricultural Censuses, we estimate a Cox proportional hazard model to examine the effect of direct government payments on the survival of farm businesses, paying particular attention to the differential effect of payments across...