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...

In 1996, two new crop insurance products--Crop Revenue Coverage and Income Protection--were introduced to insure against losses in revenue, as opposed to the traditional multiple-peril crop insurance that insures against crop yield losses. Using yield and price difference distributions in 1,000...

Suggests that apparent inconsistencies in published statistics for China's livestock sector raise questions about the validity of the underlying data. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the magnitude of the discrepancies, and considers the implications of using published statistics...

With the pending debate on the 1995 Farm Bill, crop insurance and disaster assistance have become major topics for discussion. This paper explores the performance of the current MPCI program and presents alternative programs. The need for a unified approach to ease the problem of agricultural...

The scope and purpose of this manual for Jamaica are the same as those of the technical manual for Honduras: it provides the basic tools for successfully using and managing the Food Aid and Food Security Analysis System. The manual includes instructions for conducting various policy analyses...

Using data from the United States Department of Agriculture on the Production Flexibility Contract (PFC) acres enrolled for fiscal year 1996, the authors calculated the payment rates by bushel, acre, and state. The total payments by state under the 1996 FAIR Act were also calculated. Figures...

The 1993 adverse weather and floods in the midwestern United States caused enormous damage. Apart from the impacts to urban areas, most the ponding and flood damage in the Upper Midwest occurred on farmland with significant effects on agricultural yields and production. Although public officials...

An econometric model of acreage planted in Iowa was developed to assess the weekly impacts of changing economic conditions on acreage distribution among crops. The results indicate that the producer takes into account changes in yield expectations and prices in determining final planting...

Researchers evaluate the profitability of planting flood-tolerant crops in flood plains relative to traditional row crops under different assumptions concerning flood frequency and the level of government crop subsidy. Short rotation woody crops and herbaceous energy crops are evaluated for two...

The Law of One Price (LOP) is an important component of most, if not all, international trade models because this assumption allows researchers to use a single representative price for all regions. This paper examines the long-run LOP for international commodity prices using a generalized notion...