In April, AFPC and FAPRI analyzed the economic impacts of a continuation of the current farm program provisions, conversion to a Marketing Loan Only, and termination of all farm programs over the 1996-2000 period. While termination of farm programs would adversely impact all crop farms analyzed, the results were mixed between the current farm program and the Marketing Loan Only option. The Marketing Loan was preferred by those farms which could capitalize on the increased flexibility and the elimination of acreage reduction requirements.

The previous analysis, however, was conducted under the assumption of normal weather. Would the same preferences for these three policy options hold if risk was introduced into the analysis? The present report presents the analysis of the same three policy options under the assumption that the weather pattern experienced during the 1980s would be repeated over the 1996-2003 planning horizon.

The economic results at the farm level did not change materially from the previous analysis without risk. A continuation of the current farm program provisions and the Marketing Loan Only option would be preferred by all 36 of the representative crop farms over the no farm program.

All 18 feed grain and wheat farms would prefer continuation of the current farm program provisions to the Marketing Loan Only option, as would 5 of the 8 rice farms. Seven of the ten cotton farms, however, would prefer the Marketing Loan only option over the continuation of the current farm program. The improved economic outlook for the cotton farms under the Marketing Loan Only option, however, was heavily influenced by the elimination of the acreage reduction requirements.

The Agricultural and Food Policy Center (AFPC) at Texas A&M University working closely with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI), at the University of Missouri and Iowa State, provides an independent third party evaluation of the impacts of policy proposals as requested by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.

The purpose of this report is to present the results of a farm level analysis of the impacts of three policy options (current program, Marketing Loan, and No Program) when price and yield risk of the 1980s is considered. In April, FAPRI and AFPC completed aggregate and farm level analyses of these three farm policies under the assumption of "normal" weather (ie., ignoring the impacts of risk). (See AFPC Working Paper 95-10 for the "normal" weather analyses.) For the present analyses, it was assumed that the weather conditions observed during the 1980s would be repeated.

The three farm program options analyzed for the present analysis are the same as those analyzed earlier, except that the planning horizon was changed to from 1995-2000 to 1995-2003 and price and yield risk was explicitly incorporated. The policy scenarios are described briefly as follows:

• 1990 Farm Bill (Baseline) involves extending the provisions of the 1990 Farm Bill throughout the period 1996-2003. All farm program provisions would be extended except that Conservation Reserve Program acreage would be reduced to approximately 19 million acres by 2003. Target prices would remain frozen at 1990 levels. Support prices and acreage reduction requirements would be determined by formula. Export enhancement programs for grains, dairy, and oilseed products would be funded at the levels agreed upon in the GATT negotiations.
• Marketing Loan Only Program involves the replacement of the target price, nonrecourse loan, and acreage reduction programs with recourse Marketing Loans. Producers would, in essence, be paid the difference between the Marketing Loan rate and the Marketing Loan repayment rate. The Marketing Loan repayment rate will continue to be the posted county price for wheat, feed grains, and oilseeds. The current method of determining Marketing Loan repayments in cotton and rice is also assumed. All export enhancement programs except dairy would be eliminated.
• No Farm Program involves the elimination of virtually all federal programs that directly support agriculture sector prices and income including export subsidies.

1980s Weather Conditions

The FAPRI model uses regional supply response equations and sums regional production to project U.S. production and supply. As a result the FAPRI model includes regional crop yield equations which were used to incorporate regional differences in weather for the aggregate analyses. The weather augmented crop yields for the aggregate analysis indicate that in 1996 (when 1982 weather) corn yields were above the "normal" yields about 8 bushels per acre in the Corn Belt (see FAPRI's report). In contrast, for 1997 (utilizing 1983 drought conditions) corn yields in the Corn Belt were reduced about 39 bushels per acre. The Corn Belt yields for corn in 1998 remained about 7 bushels per acre below trend, but were above the normal weather trend yields for 1999, 2000, and 2001. The 1988 drought (reflected in 2002s yields) reduced corn yields about 46 bushels per acre in the Corn Belt and had a slight (3 bushels per acre) hold over effect in 2003.

Aggregated regional crop yields were used in FAPRI's model to determine annual market prices for crops and livestock under the 1980s weather conditions. Changes in price variability for the Marketing Loan and the No Program scenarios, relative to the Baseline were calculated using similar methodology and used to incorporate changes in price risk into the farm level analysis.

The representative farms were developed using 1992 data indexed to 1995 for the present study. The crop farms are assumed to begin with 20 percent intermediate and long term debt based on information provided by ERS/USDA and the panel members. The crop farms utilize flex alternatives when profitable and are structured so government payments are not reduced by payment limits. It is assumed that the farm will contribute between $25,000 and $50,000 annually to cover family living expenditures. No off-farm related income is included in the analysis.

To replicate the risk associated with the 1980s weather, the farm level simulation model was run in the stochastic mode so price and yield risk faced by producers was incorporated for the present analysis. Each producer panel provided a history of crop yields and prices from which a probability distribution has been computed. Yields provided by the producers were largely from the 1980s so the 1980s weather FAPRI used is incorporated into the farm models. Prices provided by the producers were also largely from the 1980s and were a function of farm program provisions similar to the current farm program. The relative variability (coefficient of variation) of FAPRI's projected prices for each crop under the three farm program options with 1980s weather were computed over the 1995-2003 period. For each crop, the ratio of the coefficient of variation for an alternative program to the Baseline was used to augment the farm level producers price risk for the Marketing Loan and No Program options. The procedure used to incorporate the price and yield risk insured that the historical correlations among prices and yields was maintained and the coefficient of variation for prices reflected the changes in relative price variability reported by FAPRI.

AFPC maintains its representative farms by commodity grouping. For example, if the majority of the farm's revenue is derived from corn, the farm is included as a feed grain operation. The sections that follow summarize the impacts of the weather scenarios by commodity group. Definitions of the economic terminology employed in each section are included in Appendix C. Detailed representative farm results including the statistics (mean, standard distribution, coefficient of variation, minimum, and maximum) are included in FEED GRAIN FARMS
WHEAT FARMS
COTTON FARMS
RICE FARMS

Panel Farms Producing:

• Feed Grains
• Wheat
• Cotton
• Rice