With 1990 legislation expiring this year, the policy debate associated with the new farm bill has begun in earnest. Daniel A. Sumner, the Frank H. Buck Jr. professor of agricultural economics at UC Davis, is directing a national project looking at agricultural policy and the new farm bill. The first topic is an examination of arguments that have been used to justify government's extensive involvement with agriculture for the past 60 years, he says. A second study examines specific consequences of the commodity programs operating under the current farm legislation. In particular, this research is looking at farm prices and income support for grains, cotton and milk. Closely connected to farm and trade policies are issues of crop insurance, disaster aid, agricultural conservation and environmental programs, food-safety regulations, farm-credit programs, and policies related to agricultural research and outreach. "For more than two decades, the periodic farm bills and associated legislation have been the main vehicles for policy changes specific to agriculture and related subjects," says Sumner. "The aim of this collection of studies is to provide some of the background information to make market-oriented reform of agricultural policy more feasible."