摘要：The 1996 Farm Act gives farmers almost complete planting flexibility, allowingproducers to respond to price changes to a greater extent than they had underprevious legislation. This study measures supply responsiveness for majorfield crops to changes in their own prices and in prices for competing crops andindicates significant increases in responsiveness. Relative to 1986-90, the per-centage increases in the responsiveness of U.S. plantings of major field cropsto a 1-percent change in their own prices are wheat (1.2 percent), corn (41.6percent), soybeans (13.5 percent), and cotton (7.9 percent). In percentageterms, the increases in the responsiveness generally become greater withrespect to competing crops' price changes. The 1996 legislation has the leasteffect on U.S. wheat acreage, whereas the law may lead to an average increaseof 2 million acres during 1996-2005 in soybean acreage, a decline of 1-2 mil-lion acres in corn acreage, and an increase of 0.7 million acres in cottonacreage. Overall, the effect of the farm legislation on regional production pat-terns of major field crops appears to be modest. Corn acreage expansion in theCentral and Northern Plains, a long-term trend in this important wheat produc-tion region, will slow under the 1996 legislation, while soybean acreage expan-sion in this region will accelerate. The authors used the Policy AnalysisSystem-Economic Research Service (POLYSYS-ERS) model that was jointlydeveloped by USDA's Economic Research Service and the University ofTennessee's Agricultural Policy Analysis Center to estimate the effects of the1996 legislation.
关键词：Supply response; major field crops; acreage price elasticities;normal flex acreage (NFA); 1996 farm legislation
