Public Policy for Agriculture After Commodity Programs

Exact date of working paper unknown.The Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 opted for the market rather than the government to allocate resources and set returns in agriculture. A modest safety net of marketing loans and crop insurance remains but the era in which government managed the supply of major crops appears to be ending. The objective of this paper is to consider appropriate public policy for American agriculture without supply-control programs. We discuss options for policies addressing key concerns: economic efficiency, equity, the environment, instability, the family farm, and rural communities. The discussion is suggestive, not exhaustive, and is intended to stimulate thinking on how post-commodity program policy might better serve the needs of agriculture and the public at large