Key provisions of the new farm policy law – insurance, conservation, dairy and the traditional crop subsidies – are the focus of a new edition of Choices, the magazine of agricultural economics. In a review of crop insurance, economists Keith Coble, Art Barnaby and Rodney Jones say the new Supplemental Coverage Option may have limited appeal to Midwestern growers, who commonly buy high levels of revenue insurance. Growers of other crops may see value in combining SCO and the Price Loss Coverage program, they say.
Overall, they say, “area-triggered, shallow-loss programs that can layer on top of individual coverage crop insurance is the big new design” for farm law. The 2014 law also “directs USDA to pursue expansion of crop insurance programs to specialty crops, livestock insurance, and other commodities that have in the past been deemed difficult to insure.”