In 2009 Iowa farmers who had at least some land enrolled in the existing DCP program offered by FSA were given the opportunity to switch to an alternative called ACRE.  Despite having access to information about the program and utilizing electronic decision aids, only 27.5% of the operators...

On average, U.S. farmers choose to apply nitrogen fertilizer at a rate that exceeds the ex post agronomically optimal rate. The technology underlying the yield response to nitrogen rewards producers who over apply in years when rainfall is excessive. The overapplication of nutrients has negative...

This article identifies preferences of US cow-calf producers for voluntary traceability systems to better identify the potential success of alternative voluntary traceability systems.  Results suggest that notable heterogeneity exists between cow-calf producers in their preferences and the...

This study provides valuable insights into cow-calf producer voluntary participation in the National Animal Identification System and producers’ perceptions of several issues critically impacting the success of voluntary traceability systems.  Cow-calf producers believe that the most...

This survey paper explores the literature on decoupling of farm programs that has emerged in the last 10 years. The paper identifies and assesses the various channels of potential coupling of decoupled farm payments and provides taxonomy of coupling mechanisms found in theoretical and empirical...

The Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 recognized organic farming as a“good farming practice,†making federal crop insurance coverage available for organiccrops, and taking into account the idiosyncrasies of the organic production system. Inaddition to the production risks...

No satisfactory motivation has been forwarded in favor of any crop yield distribution, including thenormal. This article explores the foundations of yield distributions for the Law of the Minimum resourceconstraint technology at the plot level of analysis.With independent, identical, uniform...

A framework is developed to examine the 2011 pilot program established by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to insure organic crops. Given that for insurance purposes RMA links organic crop prices to their conventional counterparts by a fixed percentage, we calibrate our model to reflect the...