This thesis is an investigation of econometric crop yield models divided into two essays. In the first essay, I propose estimating a single heteroscedasticity coefficient for all counties within a crop-reporting district by pooling county-level crop yield data in a two-stage estimation process. In the context of crop insurance---where heteroscedaticity has significant economic implications---I demonstrate the pooling approach provides economically and statistically significant improvements in rating crop insurance contracts over contemporary methods. In the second essay, I propose a new method for measuring the rate of technological change in crop yields. To date the agricultural economics literature has measured technological change exclusively at the mean; in contrast, the proposed model can measure the rate of technological change in endogenously-defined yield subpopulations. I find evidence of different rates of technological change in yield subpopulations, which leads to interesting questions about the effect of technological change on agricultural production. / Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water in the United States. Policies that affect agriculture therefore have the potential to have a large effect on the overall use of water. Crop insurance is one such policy, which was found to significantly increase water use in the state of Texas. Much, but not all of this effect can be explained by an increase in planting density, and results vary widely by crop and by region.

Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第15002号 / 工博第3176号 / 新制||工||1477(附属図書館) / 27452 / UT51-2009-R726 / 京都大学大学院工学研究科都市社会工学専攻 / (主査)教授 岡田 憲夫, 教授 小林 潔司, 教授 多々納 裕一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

<p> </p> <p>This paper examines the relationship between the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) participation and technology adoption patterns, using farm-level data from the</p> <p>United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS). Participation in the federally subsidized crop insurance program may be correlated with technology adoption and other various risk management practices. Existing studies indicate that the subsidized FCIP may disincentivize producers from utilizing technology as a risk management tool. Empirical results indicate that producers enrolled in federal crop insurance programs may be more likely to have adopted PATs earlier than producers who were not enrolled in the FCIP. This could indicate that producers may not view the FCIP as a substitute for other risk management options, or that these producers may not view these technologies in the same risk-reducing lens as they may view the FCIP.</p>

<p>  </p> <p>While many studies have evaluated corn and soybean marketing strategies and crop insurance coverage levels separately, few studies have examined their interactions simultaneously.  This study evaluated the risk return tradeoff between marketing and crop insurance strategies in a portfolio context.  The Target MOTAD model was the primary method used to explore the tradeoffs between expected returns and downside risk.  On average, the hedge and roll strategy had the highest net return over the 30-year period for both corn and soybeans.  When corn and soybeans were evaluated separately, results indicated that the optimal combination of marketing strategies was not dependent on crop insurance coverage levels.  The strategies contributing to an optimal portfolio for corn were a mixture of the hedge and roll strategy, and the marketing year cash price strategy.  Combining the hedge and roll strategy with the marketing year cash price strategy was also optimal for soybeans.  When corn and soybean strategies were optimized simultaneously, however, optimal marketing strategies were dependent on the crop insurance coverage level chosen.  The optimal marketing strategies to mitigate risk for the 75 and 80 percent revenue protection plan included the corn hedge and roll strategy, the soybean marketing year cash price strategy, and the soybean six-month cash price strategy.  For the 85 percent revenue protection plan, the optimal marketing strategies were the corn hedge and roll strategy, soybean marketing year cash price strategy, and the soybean hedge and roll strategy. For the 90 and 95 percent supplemental coverage option (SCO) and enhanced coverage option (ECO) plans, the optimal marketing strategies were the corn marketing year cash price, the corn hedge and roll, and the soybean six-month cash price strategy. </p>

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / Multiple Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) is a federally subsidized crop insurance program designed to mitigate risk for farmers across the United States. Many changes in technology and weather have increased yields in recent years. This has caused some to argue for the crop insurance program to consider yield trends when setting yields for the producer. This thesis evaluates alternative Actual Production History (APH) methods for corn to determine differences in the methods and the resulting APH. The key issue to be evaluated is that a producer’s APH may not be reflective of their “yield goal.” The thesis examined how the APH can differ under alternative methods of calculating an APH. Some methods examined are currently used by the Risk Management Agency (RMA). Other methods are hypothetical alternatives. This study examines alternative methods on a national, county, and a farm level. This thesis demonstrates that adjusting APHs for yield trends provides a higher APH than an un-trended APH. The 7 Year Olympic Trended APH provides the highest APH in most cases for all the methods examined. The RMA Un-trended APH proved to provide the least yield on average for all methods examined. This demonstrates the importance of adjusting for yield trends to factor in agricultural technology advancements over time.

Mudanças na política agrícola brasileira têm preconizado a adoção de mecanismos de mercado para o fortalecimento da comercialização, financiamento à produção e mitigação dos riscos agropecuários, tanto o climático, quanto o de mercado. O seguro rural é um dos instrumentos mais promissores nesse novo estágio da política agrícola, pois permite a administração do risco agrícola, ao mesmo tempo em que lastreia as operações de comercialização e financiamento agrícola. O seguro de receita emerge como um instrumento ainda mais robusto de estabilização a receita agrícola, na medida em que garante a variação de produtividade e preço, simultaneamente. O instrumento já é consolidado nos Estados Unidos e começa a ser estudado no Brasil. Por essa razão, a primeira parte do estudo, capítulo 2, visa analisar os planos de seguro existentes e indicar os modelos que devem ser fomentados no Brasil. Constatou-se que os modelos estadunidenses baseados no plano de Proteção de Renda (IP - Income Protection) e Receita Garantida (RA - Revenue Assurance), substituídos pelo plano Proteção de Receita (RP - Revenue Protection), são os mais adequados para iniciar o desenvolvimento dessa modalidade de seguro no Brasil. Na segunda parte do trabalho, capítulo 3, é apresentado modelo teórico de plano de seguro de receita, bem como procedimento metodológico de cálculo da taxa de prêmio, de modo univariado e bivariado. Aplicada a metodologia ao caso da soja no Paraná, concluiu-se que as taxas calculadas no estudo são inferiores às praticadas nos dois projetos experimentais existentes. O distanciamento entre as taxas praticadas no mercado e a diferença em relação às estimadas na nesta pesquisa indicam imprecisão no cálculo das taxas de prêmio e são evidências de superestimação das taxas pelas seguradoras. / Changes in Brazilian agricultural policies have advocated the adoption of market mechanisms for strengthening the marketing, the financing to production, and both climate and market farming risk mitigation. Rural insurance is one of the most promising instruments in this new stage of agricultural policy, for crop risk administration at the same time it serves as collateral to marketing operations and agricultural funding. The insurance revenue emerges as an even more robust stabilization of agricultural revenue instrument to the extent that it ensures the variation of productivity and price simultaneously. The instrument is already consolidated in the United States and begins to be studied in Brazil. For this reason, the first part of the study, Chapter 2, aims to analyze existing insurance plans and indicate the models that should be encouraged in Brazil. It was found that models based on U.S. Income Protection (IP) and Revenue Assurance (RA), replaced by the plan Revenue Protection are best suited to start the development of this type of insurance in Brazil. In the second part of the dissertation, Chapter 3, the theoretical model of revenue insurance plan is presented, as well as a methodology for univariate and bivariate premium ratemaking. The methodology was applied to the case of soybean in Paraná, and it was concluded that the rates calculated in this study are lower than those of the two existing experimental projects. The gap between the market rates and the difference in relation to the rates estimated in the study indicate inaccuracy in the calculation of premium rates and are evidence of rate overestimation by insurers.

The purpose of this research is to provide quantitative and limited qualitative analysis for the United States Intermountain West on the economic effectiveness of risk management alternatives in an agricultural operation. This research is not meant to be an exhaustive comparison of every potential combination of alternatives and risk scenarios. Instead, specific parameters such as farm size, crops grown, risk attitudes and risk management strategies are set to guide the research and offer a basis of comparison. This research evaluates several levels of coverage using Multiple Peril Crop Insurance, Crop Revenue Coverage Insurance, Adjusted Gross Revenue - Lite Insurance and a limited interaction of the futures market. Microsoft Excel and the add-in Simetar was used to perform the quantitative analysis. A set of spreadsheets were created to allow a variety of data to be easily input and manipulated. The values used in this research were based on the 2002 Census of Agriculture to create a "typical" farm considered in Box Elder County, Utah. The results generated were sorted and ranked according to four decision criteria in relation to the net income observed in each simulated scenario. These include: the probability that net income will exceed $0; a maxi-min; a maxi-max; and the maximum positive net income at a probability of occurrence of 0.5, resembling a Safety-First criterion. The later three decision criterion used correspond to risk attitudes that may be possessed by a producer: risk adverse, risk preferring or seeking, and risk neutral respectively. The quantitatively "best" observed results were then qualitatively compared to the next "best" result. In general the conclusion is made that some strategy is better than no strategy and the "best" risk management strategy is one compatible with the risk attitude of the producer and the parameters of the farm in consideration. There is no single strategy for all decision criterions that consistently outperforms all other strategies considered in this research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-104).

Mudanças na política agrícola brasileira têm preconizado a adoção de mecanismos de mercado para o fortalecimento da comercialização, financiamento à produção e mitigação dos riscos agropecuários, tanto o climático, quanto o de mercado. O seguro rural é um dos instrumentos mais promissores nesse novo estágio da política agrícola, pois permite a administração do risco agrícola, ao mesmo tempo em que lastreia as operações de comercialização e financiamento agrícola. O seguro de receita emerge como um instrumento ainda mais robusto de estabilização a receita agrícola, na medida em que garante a variação de produtividade e preço, simultaneamente. O instrumento já é consolidado nos Estados Unidos e começa a ser estudado no Brasil. Por essa razão, a primeira parte do estudo, capítulo 2, visa analisar os planos de seguro existentes e indicar os modelos que devem ser fomentados no Brasil. Constatou-se que os modelos estadunidenses baseados no plano de Proteção de Renda (IP - Income Protection) e Receita Garantida (RA - Revenue Assurance), substituídos pelo plano Proteção de Receita (RP - Revenue Protection), são os mais adequados para iniciar o desenvolvimento dessa modalidade de seguro no Brasil. Na segunda parte do trabalho, capítulo 3, é apresentado modelo teórico de plano de seguro de receita, bem como procedimento metodológico de cálculo da taxa de prêmio, de modo univariado e bivariado. Aplicada a metodologia ao caso da soja no Paraná, concluiu-se que as taxas calculadas no estudo são inferiores às praticadas nos dois projetos experimentais existentes. O distanciamento entre as taxas praticadas no mercado e a diferença em relação às estimadas na nesta pesquisa indicam imprecisão no cálculo das taxas de prêmio e são evidências de superestimação das taxas pelas seguradoras. / Changes in Brazilian agricultural policies have advocated the adoption of market mechanisms for strengthening the marketing, the financing to production, and both climate and market farming risk mitigation. Rural insurance is one of the most promising instruments in this new stage of agricultural policy, for crop risk administration at the same time it serves as collateral to marketing operations and agricultural funding. The insurance revenue emerges as an even more robust stabilization of agricultural revenue instrument to the extent that it ensures the variation of productivity and price simultaneously. The instrument is already consolidated in the United States and begins to be studied in Brazil. For this reason, the first part of the study, Chapter 2, aims to analyze existing insurance plans and indicate the models that should be encouraged in Brazil. It was found that models based on U.S. Income Protection (IP) and Revenue Assurance (RA), replaced by the plan Revenue Protection are best suited to start the development of this type of insurance in Brazil. In the second part of the dissertation, Chapter 3, the theoretical model of revenue insurance plan is presented, as well as a methodology for univariate and bivariate premium ratemaking. The methodology was applied to the case of soybean in Paraná, and it was concluded that the rates calculated in this study are lower than those of the two existing experimental projects. The gap between the market rates and the difference in relation to the rates estimated in the study indicate inaccuracy in the calculation of premium rates and are evidence of rate overestimation by insurers.