Production and marketing contracts govern 36 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural production, up from 12 percent in 1969. Contracts are now the primary method of handling sales of many livestock commodities, including milk, hogs, and broilers, and of major crops such as sugar beets, fruit,...

Public amenities provided by a rural agricultural landscape, arising from open space and farm activity, are important to many citizens and policymakers. Widespread development of farmland in some parts of the country has spawned an expanding array of farmland protection programs by county,...

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...