Farm heterogeneity and leveraging crop insurance for conservation practice adoption

OCE Seminar Farm heterogeneity and leveraging crop insurance for conservation practice adoption

Speakers: Jenny Ifft, Kansas State University and Maggie Jodlowski, The Ohio State University

Time and date: Monday May 6, 12:30pm-1:30pm

Location: Room 107A – Press Room, Whitten Building or Teams (meeting link forthcoming)

Abstract: Current and proposed policies aim to leverage the Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) to promote conservation practices. This study uses corn farm-level survey data to inform the effectiveness of targeting FCIP participants. We implement an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to assess what conservation practices are most common among participants. We find that farms that use crop insurance have higher adoption rates for practices that are generally profit maximizing. We also calculate nitrogen balance, a yield-scaled measure of nitrogen fertilizer's potential environmental impact. We find a positive relationship between crop insurance and nitrogen balance closer to the optimum.

Rebecca Nemec Boehm, PhD

Senior Economist

Immediate Office, Office of the Chief Economist

United States Department of Agriculture

Email: Rebecca.nemec@usda.gov 

Cell: 202-989-5830