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FAPRI-MU has farm program tool, too

Farmers have options when choosing online tools to help them decide which commodity program they’ll sign up with.  The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri has developed a tool with Texas A&M University.

Peter Zimmel, FAPRI-MU program director, says ease of use was at the top of the list…

“With all of our experience over the years of working with producers and developing tools for them we know that many times their use of the computer or their knowledge of the computer may be limited. It’s also a very complicated decision so we wanted to make this as simple on the producers as possible.”

Zimmel tells Brownfield the two best features of the FAPRI tool are its sensitivity to prices and yields and the incorporation of risk…

“If a producer just looks at, you know, a point estimate for prices in the future they’ll get a skewed look at which program could possibly be best for them so with our extensive research here, we’re able to incorporate the risk that they see going forward.”

Zimmel says FAPRI will be putting out price projections every month with the tool. A toll-free number is available for farmers to ask questions and he says there are power point displays, webinars and podcasts for farmers to look at.

The University of Illinois has developed an online tool as well.

AUDIO:  Interview with Peter Zimmel (6:00 mp3)

FAPRI-MU online farm program tool

U of I Farm Doc online farm program tool