Beginning, limited-resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers make up as much as 40 percent of all U.S. farms. Some Federal conservation programs contain provisions that encourage participation by such “targeted” farmers and the 2008 Farm Act furthered these efforts. This report compares...

Can a single program support farm income and encourage producers to adopt environmentally sound farming practices? While simple in concept, attempting to roll the farm income support features of existing commodity programs and conservation payments into a single program raises questions. Exactly...

This report is a primer on the use of debt by U.S. farm businesses for policymakers, researchers, and others interested in the financial well-being of U.S. agriculture. It presents data on basic debt-use patterns by farm businesses (in 2011, over 900,000 farms operated as farm businesses based...