Why did US farmers fare poorly even as most other segments of the US economy prospered during the 1990s? I develop three arguments to explain why US agriculture was prospered in the 1970s but has underperformed relative to the rest of the US economy in most of the 1980s and 1990s. Measures of...

Agricultural data systems remain based upon now obsolete concepts. In particular, the "full-time, family farm" is still organizing concepts for much of the farm data system, and for agricultural policies. Yet farming has clearly bifurcated into: a relatively small number of large farms that...

The majority of farm households in OECD countries earn more off-farm income than farm income, even including government payments. While this is a well recognized fact its implications for risk management have not been well recognized. Current efforts to reform farm support have focused on the...