Federal Risk Management Tools for Agricultural Producers: An Overview

This report describes the current landscape of Federal risk management policies, including the Agricultural Act of 2014, and analyzes the outcomes and interactions of these programs. Despite their common objective of risk reduction, Federal programs differ in their payment mechanisms and their impacts on producer revenue, and uptake has varied significantly across programs and crops. Area-loss insurance programs, such as the Stacked Income Protection Plan and Supplemental Coverage Option, received low enrollments, while applications to the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program witnessed sizable growth. Differences in program enrollment and program provisions across crops led the bulk of Agriculture Risk Coverage payments to go to producers with corn and soybean base acres, while most Price Loss Coverage payments went to rice, peanuts, and wheat base acres. Half of dairy producers enrolled in the Margin Protection Program for Dairy, but large national margins led to few payments in 2015 and 2016. In contrast, changes in program design led the Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy program to make significantly more indemnity payments per policy. Outside of dairy, the Livestock Forage Program remains the largest livestock support program, though outlays have fallen in recent years.