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Government Interventions
Government policy with regards to agriculture is complicated and confusing. Since the 1930's, new programs have been added in pieces, year after year, resulting in a highly disjointed and often unorganized system. While each program is designed to solve an existing problem, they also carry problems of their own, leading to more reforms. These systems are especially complex because they must be designed to fulfill the needs of farmers, consumers, nutritionists, environmentalists, politicians and private companies. While government policies are not homogeneous, and their effects diverse, they can be laid out into general categories to help make sense of their intentions.

Price Supports
Price supports are a government policy used set price higher than the market price for both producer and consumer. The government essentially buys the product at the support price to help cover the costs incurred by farmers in certain industries. The goal is provide financial support to farmers, even if it raises the prices for consumers along with it. Without an enforcement method, a price support will become obsolete and price will return to the equilibrium value. One method of enforcement is a purchase and removal policy, where the government offers to purchase any quantity of goods from farmers at the support price. If this price is higher than the market price, farmers will be likely to sell. By buying from farmers, the government reduces the amount of goods in the market and price increases towards the support price, thus upholding their policy.

Supply Controls
A supply control is a policy aimed at reducing the overall quantity that farmers are allowed to plant, harvest and sell. In an ideal system, supply and demand takes hold and a reduction in supply correlates to a direct boost in prices. Like price supports, an enforcement method is needed to maintain this balance. One approach is to set a production quota that states what each farmer in a particular industry is allotted in terms of production. Production quotas were implemented more commonly up through the 1970's but limiting the overall production of U.S. farmers was unpopular in the eyes of many. For industries that no longer implement such policies, there are lighter practices like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that compensate farmers who willingly take portions of their land out of the production cycle. The CRP was extended through 2018 under the Agricultural Act of 2014.

Deficiency Payments
A deficiency payment is a government strategy where they pay a producer the difference between the consumer price and a target price. If the target price is lower than that year's equilibrium price, then no payment is made. The difference between deficiency payments and price supports is that price supports require the consumer to pay a higher cost while deficiency payments offer the consumer a lower price. Producers aren't concerned with how revenue is divided between consumer costs and government payments so deficiency payments provide an incentive for higher production, which helps drive down the price paid by consumers. One problem that policy-makers face when trying to implement deficiency payments is that the difference between target price and the new, artificial consumer price has to be covered by the government, often leading to higher than anticipated costs. Despite these costs, deficiency payments are still a major tool for government intervention, especially in the grain and oilseeds industry, and are specifically mentioned in the most recent agriculture act.

Direct Payments
One policy that the government uses that relies less on the promotion of overproduction and a forced change in the equilibrium price are direct payments. These payments function similarly to a social security or welfare check. An important aspect of direct payments is that they are intended to be decoupled, meaning it is not dependent on a farmer's current production methods. The payments are based on the historical production of a farmer in recent years but do not include the current year. In 2002, the government added a new type of payment called a counter-cyclical payment. The purpose of this new subsidy was to help alleviate the expenses of payments in higher priced years. Counter-cyclical payments are only paid when the market price is comparatively low are often coupled with direct and deficiency payments.

Insurance
One of the most common programs implemented by the government is to help protect farmers from unnecessary risks by providing crop insurance. These insurance policies are important because farmers can face income shortages when harvests are bad but can also be hurt by over-productive harvests that lead to unusually low prices. Insurance could be provided by private companies, but the goal of the government is to help shield farmers from the costs of market-rate premiums and give them an easier and cheaper method to protect themselves from risk. In principle, crop insurance is the category of government programs that is most open to all types of crops but in reality, grain and oilseed crops still see the majority of these insurance subsidies. In 2012, during the reauthorization of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, Congressional policy-makers considered eliminating all direct payments and replacing them with crop insurance programs. Agricultural economists, though, warned that expanded crop insurance subsidies could end up being more costly in the long-run.

Demand Expansion
A policy of demand expansion is a government tool that attempts to raise equilibrium price. The idea is to increase the amount that consumers would be willing to buy at each price level, increasing overall demand, and driving the equilibrium market price up. For example, a large percentage of the corn produced in the U.S. is used as an input for other goods like ethanol and animal feed. If the government promotes the use of corn as an input, demand could be driven up and with it, price. Demand expansion programs are often well-received because they offer a way to increase demand, market price and overall consumption, something that no other program is able to accomplish.