The use of emergency, disaster, and other ad hoc sources of income support to American farmers escalated dramatically between 1991 and 2002, increasing year-to-year uncertainty about the magnitude and distribution of farm program benefits. Ad hoc payment mechanisms, while meeting needs now...

It is proposed that "real" research issues are socially relevant, provide findings with utility beyond the profession, and are anticipatory. An industrializing agricultural sector, an evolving political economy of agroenvironmental policy, an increasingly transnational economy, and rapid...