Whole-Farm Approaches to a Safety Net

by Robert Dismukes and Ron Durst

In recent U.S. farm policy debates, several "whole-farm revenue" programs have been proposed as a new form of safety net that would be available to all U.S. farms. A whole-farm program is based on revenues from all farming activities added together and is not linked to the production of particular commodities. This report looks at the risk management potential for such programs and the obstacles to implementing such a whole-farm revenue approach to a farm safety net.

Keywords: safety net, income variability, risk management, income-stabilization accounts, savings, tax, revenue insurance

In this publication...

• Entire Report
• Report Summary
• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, and Summary
• Introduction
• Proposals for Whole-Farm Risk Management Assistance
• Challenges in Developing a Whole-Farm Safety Net
• Conclusions
• References
• Appendix: Data Sources