The successful expansion of the U.S crop insurance program has not eliminated ad hoc disaster assistance. An alternative currently being explored by Congress in preparation of the 2008 farm bill is a standing disaster relief program. One form such a program could take can be found in the area...

Dairy policy often becomes a contentious topic during U.S. farm bill negotiations. The dairy subtitle of the 2012 farm bill has been debated and discussed since 2009. This research uses best-worst scenario methods to analyze dairy farmer preferences for policy options, including eliminating...

The objective of this study is to evaluate the risk associated with major agricultural commodity yields in the United States. We are particularly concerned with the nonstationary nature of the yield distribution, which arises primarily as a result of technological progress and changing...

The use of plausible stochastic price processes in price risk analysis has allowed advances not seen in crop yield risk analysis. This study develops a stochastic process for yield modeling and risk management. The Pólya urn process is an internally consistent dynamic representation of yield...

This study examines the actuarial implications of the loss cost ratio (LCR) ratemaking methodology employed by the Risk Management Agency as a component of base rates for U.S. crop insurance programs, and identifies specific conditions required for the LCR methodology to result in unbiased rates...

This paper examines how changes in major elements of the U.S. federal crop insurance program affect the structure of the agricultural insurance industry.We model interactions between farmers, insurance agents and insurance companies. Marginal changes in government policy (premium subsidy rate,...

A framework is developed to examine organic crop insurance established by the Risk Management Agency (RMA). Given that the RMA links organic and conventional crop prices, the model is calibrated to reflect both markets to illustrate the impacts that pricing has on insurance coverage. Findings...

County-level yield data are used in applied research and crop insurance policy in place of farmlevel yield data, which are likely sparse, not broadly representative, and subject to selection bias. We exploit the fact that county-level yields are the aggregate of farm-level yields to derive...

Government programs that help agricultural producers manage risk may have environmental consequences. In recent years, premium subsidies for crop insurance have been increased substantially to encourage greater producer participation. Using detailed, producer-level crop insurance contract data...

Previous studies identify limited potential efficacy of weather derivatives in hedging agricultural exposures. In contrast to earlier studies which investigate the problem at low levels of aggregation, we find that better weather hedging opportunities may exist at higher levels of spatial...