Linda Foreman

The Post-Buyout Experience: Peanut and Tobacco Sectors Adapt to Policy Reform

Marketing quota and price support programs for peanuts and tobacco were a longstanding feature of U.S. farm policy, from the 1930s until the Government enacted quota buyouts, in 2002 for peanuts and 2004 for tobacco. Quota owners were compensated with temporary payments, but elimination of the quota programs exposed producers more to market risks and brought about structural changes at farm, regional, and marketwide levels. Since the buyouts, many peanut and tobacco farms have exited production. The farms that remain are mostly larger and have adopted new risk management strategies, such as contracting. Freed of the planting restrictions in the quota programs, production of peanuts, and to a lesser extent of tobacco, has been relocated to regions better suited to their growth. While total acreage and prices for peanuts and tobacco have remained below pre-buyout levels, the lower prices—along with increased production efficiency— have supported renewed growth in demand, particularly in export markets.

Characteristics and Production Costs of U.S. Rice Farms

The average cost of producing a hundred pounds (cwt) of rice was

The Profit Potential of Certified Organic Field Crop Production

6.00 for U.S. producers surveyed in 2000, ranging from about

Characteristics and Production Costs of U.S. Corn Farms, 2001

2 per cwt to more than

Profiles of US farm households adopting conservation-compatible practices

10. Producers in the lowest quartile of production costs averaged

Conservation-Compatible Practices and Programs: Who Participates?

3.99 per cwt compared with

Feed Grains Backgrounder

8.94 for producers in the highest quartile. Regional differences in production practices, farm characteristics, and growing conditions were major influences on production costs among rice producers. More than half of the low-cost farms were located in the Arkansas Non-Delta, the largest rice region. Most high-cost farms were in California and the Gulf Coast regions. Three-quarters of rice production was concentrated on large and very large farms, categories that included nearly two-thirds of all rice farms, but the link between size of enterprise and production costs for rice is weaker than for other commodities. At the marketing-year average price of

Characteristics and Production Costs of U.S. Soybean Farms

5.61 per hundredweight, 78 percent of rice farms were able to cover operating costs and 43 percent covered both their operating and ownership costs of rice production in 2000. After accounting for Government payments, nearly all rice farms (97 percent) were able to cover operating costs in 2000, and about 84 percent were able to cover both operating and ownership costs.

Post-Buyout Structural Change in the Peanut and Tobacco Sectors

Organic crop acres in the United States more than doubled between 2002 and 2011 as acreage increased from 1.3 to over 3 million acres. While acreage for some major field crops increased substantially during this period, growth was more modest or had stalled for others. This study examines the profitability of corn, wheat, and soybean production using national survey data and finds that significant economic returns are possible from organic production of these crops. The main reason for higher per-bushel returns to organic production is the price premiums paid for organic crops. Despite potentially higher returns, the adoption of organic field crop production has been slow and is challenging due to such factors as achieving effective weed control and the processes involved with organic certification.