Farmers can choose from a wide selection of crop insurance products and marketing strategies. Combinations of these risk management tools have varying effects on the user's risk environment. In this paper, the authors rank nine risk management strategies for their impacts on average returns,...

Driven by the expanding production of biofuels, the linkage between the agricultural and energy markets is evolving, and that has changed the market for agricultural commodities dramatically. These developments in agricultural markets consequently shifted the distribution of domestic grains and...

The vast majority of crop and revenue insurance policies sold in the United States are single-crop policies that insure against low yields or low revenues for each crop grown on a particular farm. This practice of insuring one crop at a time runs counter to the traditional risk management...

In recent years, the organic sector has grown steadily and significantly. However, little economic research has been performed on risk management in organic agriculture, likely because of the lack of available data. This lack of data may also be why the creation of the current crop insurance...

We examine four scenarios for the evolution of the biofuel sector using a partial equilibrium model of the world agricultural sector. The model includes the new Renewable Fuels Standard in the 2007 energy act, the two-way relationship between fossil energy and biofuel markets, and a new trend...

The effect of sampling error in estimation of farmers' mean yields for crop insurance purposes is explored using farm-level corn yield data in Iowa from 1990 to 2000 and Monte Carlo simulations. We find that sampling error combined with nonlinearities in the insurance indemnity function will...

Projections of U.S. ethanol production and its impacts on planted acreage, crop prices, livestock production and prices, trade, and retail food costs are presented under the assumption that current tax credits and trade policies are maintained. The projections were made using a multi-product,...

The ongoing growth of corn-based ethanol production raises some fundamental questions about what impact continued growth will have on U.S. and world agriculture. Estimates of the long-run potential for ethanol production can be made by calculating the corn price at which the incentive to expand...

The Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) provided a continuing mandate for progressive reforms to liberalize world agricultural markets. A new round of negotiation was put into motion in early 2000 and later formalized in what is now called the Doha Round. The Doha Round negotiation...

Since 1986 the federal crop insurance program has changed in several ways: the number of covered crops has increased dramatically; the number of insured acres and amount of total premiums have risen; and new styles of crop insurance policies have been introduced. Each change has had a...