Small U.S. farms and those run by socially disadvantaged minority operators tend not to purchase insurance or to participate in insurance-type programs operated by USDA. This report traces the lack of use of such risk management measures to several characteristics of such farmers, who include...

Public risk management policies for dairy producers have the potential to induce expansion in milk supplies, which might lower farm-level prices and offset risk-reduction benefits. An evaluation of USDA’s Livestock Gross Margin-Dairy (LGM-Dairy) insurance program finds economic downside risk...

The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Farm Act), which governs agricultural programs through 2007, was signed into law in May 2002. This report presents an initial evaluation of the new legislation's effects on agricultural commodity markets, based on sectorwide model...

Authorized by the 2008 Farm Act, the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program is the first revenue-based, income-support program that calculates payments using recent market prices and a producer’s actual plantings. The payments are triggered when a farm’s revenue and State revenue...

This report examines current trends in the U.S. grain industry. Many identity preservation(IP) grain systems have emerged recently, driven by a confluence of supply and demand factors. IP grain requirements for specific production protocols, marketing channels, and quality assurance depend on...

Early-warning systems for plant diseases are valuable when the systems provide timely forecasts that farmers can use to inform their pest management decisions. To evaluate the value of the systems, this study examines, as a case study, USDA’s coordinated framework for soybean rust...

USDA’s current method for estimating expected counter-cyclical payment rates produces unintentionally biased estimates because it does not consider the variability of marketing year prices. Estimates with positive bias increase the risk of overpayment to producers who accept advance payments....

This report analyzes farmers' choice of crop insurance contracts and tests for the presence of asymmetric information in the market for multiple yield and revenue insurance products. Farmers' risk characteristics, their level of income, and the cost of insurance significantly affect their...

During most of 2005-10, the price of expiring U.S. corn, soybeans, and wheat futures contracts settled much higher than corresponding delivery market cash prices. Because futures contracts at expiration are commonly thought to be equivalent to cash grain, this commodity price non-convergence...