Self-insurance is an important tool businesses use to manage the financial consequences of their risks. Sources of farm self-insurance include financial assets, crop stocks, and animal inventories. Since 2012, however, self-insurance has declined as use of subsided insurance has grown. This negative relationship raises the policy questions, “Are Federal subsidies crowding out self-insurance?” and “What is the optimal mix of self-insurance and public insurance subsidies?

In this article, we project total crop acreage of 337.8 million acres for 2025 using the estimate for principal crop acreage in the March 2025 USDA Prospective Plantings report and other assumptions. This is 3.0 million acres less than the total for 2024 and tied with 2022 for the lowest total crop acreage over 1998 through 2025. The decline in total U.S. crop acreage that began in 2014 does not appear to have yet fully run its course.

Income projections suggest 2025 will be another low-income year, resulting in financial deterioration on many farms. Net income for 2025 is projected for a representative 1,500-acre farm with 20% owned, 40% share-rented, and 40% cash-rented. It is forecasted to be $26,010, a relatively low level. Income is expected to be much lower if less farmland is owned and more farmland is cash-rented. Farms with 100% of their acres cash-rented could face large losses.

The USDA’s March Hogs and Pigs report holds some bullish albeit mostly modest surprises, as most statistics are smaller than a year ago and below pre-report expectations of unchanged to higher. The March 1 inventory of all hogs and pigs is 74.5 million head, down about 0.5% from last quarter and almost 0.24% below a year ago, compared to pre-report estimates averaging 1.2% higher. The market hog inventory is also about 0.2% smaller than a year ago compared to expectations it would be 1.1% larger.

In the farmdoc daily of March 3, 2025, we documented the importance of the 1991 Farm Bill policy decision to give US farmers the freedom to make planting decisions less constrained by government commodity programs. In this article, we extend the analysis to other 1991 farm program crops as well as hay, the third largest US field crop in acres. These crops have evolved, with corn and soybeans becoming the Foundational Crops of modern agriculture, while hay and wheat are legacy large acreage crops.

As discussed previously, water laws in western states arguably pose the second greatest challenge or quandary for conservation policy (farmdoc daily, February 27, 2025). This quandary is magnified by that…