The results of analyzing 74 representative crop, livestock, and dairy farms located in key production regions over the 1997-2002 time frame are presented in this paper. Fifty of the 74 farms monitored appear to be financially sound. Ten of the 74 are showing signs of financial stress due to low...

The wool and mohair industries have been in a period of radical transition over the last few years. A number of issues have adversely impacted wool and mohair producers. These include loss of milling infrastructure, world economic events that have severely damaged export markets, increasing...

The farm level economic impacts of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (FAIR) on representative crop and livestock operations are projected in this report. For this report the FAIR Act will be referred to as the 1996 Farm Bill. The analysis was conducted over the 1996-2002...

For the last three years, U.S. cotton producers have been heavily dependent on ad hoc emergency disaster and market loss assistance to cash flow their operations. They have not been alone. Wheat, feed grains, oilseeds and rice producers have also been faced with low commodity prices, adverse...

What is a traditional family farm? Is it a family of four living on a farm and supplying all of the labor, capital and management or is it a family corporation with four families supplying all of the capital and management? These types of questions continue to arise in policy debates, as they...

The FAIR Act of 1996, also known as the Freedom to Farm Act (ACT) dismantled many of the agriculture policy tools in use for the last 25 years. Gone were target prices, deficiency payments, and set asides. In their place were expanded marketing loan programs to effectively include wheat and feed...

The farm level economic impacts of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (FAIR) on representative crop and livestock operations are projected in this report. For this report the FAIR Act will be referred to as the 1996 Farm Bill. The analysis was conducted over the 1996-2002...

The objective of this study is to evaluate the farm level impacts of the change in policy that occurred in 1996 with the passage of the FAIR Act. This is done by estimating the impact to farmers’ income if the 1990 Farm Bill provisions had been extended as opposed to enacting FAIR in 1996. In...

Since the 1920's, the federal government has used an array of farm programs to provide a “safety net” for American agriculture. Farm programs have used price supports, disaster payments, income supports, direct payments, and supply management to provide a safety net for particular markets...