This report provides an overview of farm safety net proposals for the next farm bill, as advocated by the Administration, Members of Congress, and various interest groups. The Senate Agriculture Committee approved its version of the 2012 omnibus farm bill on April 26, 2012 (Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2012), and officially filed the measure, S. 3240 , on May 24, 2012. A brief summary of the bill's farm safety net provisions is shown in Figure 1 . For details, see CRS Report R42552, The Senate Agriculture Committee's 2012 Farm Bill (S. 3240): A Side-by-Side Comparison with Current Law . In advance of the expiration of the 2008 farm bill ( P.L. 110-246 ), numerous proposals have been offered to revise the "farm safety net" for producers of crops covered by farm commodity support programs. Farm safety net proposals surfaced mostly during fall 2011, when budget deliberations by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction generated concerns that a new farm bill might be "written" or severely constrained from a budgetary perspective by budget negotiators, rather than by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. Prior to the joint committee's deadline of November 23, 2011, the Administration, Members of Congress, and several prominent commodity and agricultural interest groups released proposals for U.S. farm policy in general, and for commodity programs in particular. The proposals ranged from simply extending current farm programs at reduced funding levels to program elimination and wholesale replacement. In October 2011, leadership of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, drawing on various proposals that had emerged, sought to develop new farm policy that would fit within proposed budgetary guidelines. The leadership's proposal was not publically released, and ultimately the joint committee failed to reach a bipartisan consensus on deficit reduction. As a result, development of the farm bill is now following a more traditional legislative process, beginning with committee deliberations. Both the House and the Senate held hearings in early 2012 to solicit views from producers and others in advance of developing committee bills. This report provides a context for understanding and comparing the farm safety net proposals against current farm programs. The first section briefly describes the current farm safety net programs designed to support farm income and manage risk. The second section identifies issues and tradeoffs that might affect various policy approaches in the development of a new farm safety net. The third section compares each of the major safety net proposals with respect to the following criteria: program type, commodity coverage, type of losses covered, program mechanics, payment limits, conservation compliance, cost to producers and taxpayers, and proposal sponsor's rationale. Finally, Appendix A compares current farm safety net programs to the same set of criteria (and reporting status for the World Trade Organization), while Appendix B contains a description of the so-called "super-committee" process which occurred in the fall of 2011 and which precipitated the public presentation of many of the farm safety net proposals. Funding to write the next farm bill will be based on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) March 2012 baseline projection of the cost of mandatory farm bill programs, and on varying budgetary assumptions about whether programs will continue. Total budget authority for all mandatory farm bill programs under current law is $995 billion during FY2013-FY2022 ( Table 1 ). Of this amount, budget authority for farm safety net programs is $153 billion over the 10-year period, including $63 billion for Title I (including commodity programs) and $90 billion for Title XII (crop insurance). Disaster programs do not have baseline funding. The CBO baseline projection is an estimate at a particular point in time of what federal spending on mandatory programs likely would be under current law. The March 2012 CBO baseline projection is the "scoring baseline" against which farm bill proposals would be measured for the remainder of the second session of the 112 th Congress. From a budget perspective, programs with a continuing baseline are assumed to go on under current law. These amounts can be used to reauthorize the same programs, reallocated among these and other programs, used as savings for deficit reduction, or used as offsets to help pay for other provisions. The federal government supports farm income and helps farmers manage risks associated with variability in crop yields and prices through a collection of programs. The broader farming community often refers to the "farm safety net" as: 1. farm commodity price and income support programs under Title I of the 2008 farm bill, 2. federal crop insurance (permanently authorized) under the Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980, and 3. disaster assistance programs under Title XII of the 2008 farm bill, which expired on September 30, 2011. Each of these three components is covered in the sections below and summarized in Table 2 . The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) currently estimates the total cost of farm safety net programs for FY2011 at $13.8 billion. Projected budget authority for farm safety net programs averages $15.3 billion per year over FY2013-FY2022, including $6.3 billion per year for Title I (including commodity programs) and $9 billion per year for Title XII (crop insurance). Disaster programs do not have baseline funding. The mandatory commodity provisions of Title I of the 2008 farm bill provide support for 26 farm commodities—food grains, feed grains, oilseeds, upland cotton, peanuts, and pulse crops. The major farm programs under which payments can be received include direct payments (DP), counter-cyclical payments (CCP), Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) payments, and special benefits (including loan deficiency payments, marketing loan gains, and certificate exchanges) under the Marketing Assistance Loan program, as described in Table 2 . Producers of other so-called "loan commodities" (including extra long staple, or ELS, cotton, wool, mohair, and honey) are eligible only for nonrecourse marketing assistance loans and marketing loan benefits. In the 2008 farm bill, benefits for producers of dry peas, lentils, and chickpeas were expanded to include CCP but not fixed direct payments. Current farm law also mandates that raw cane and refined beet sugar prices be supported through a combination of limits on domestic output that can be sold and nonrecourse loans for domestic refined sugar, backed up by quotas that limit imports. Dairy product prices are supported by guaranteed government purchases of nonfat dry milk, cheese, and butter at set prices, and quotas that limit imports. Additionally for dairy, Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) payments are made directly to farmers when farm-level milk prices fall below specified levels. In contrast to producers of traditional program commodities, producers of specialty crops (e.g., fruits, vegetables, horticulture crops) and livestock generally have received little or no direct government support through commodity programs. Instead, these farms may manage risks through business diversification, purchase of federal crop insurance, and participation in federal disaster assistance programs. The federal crop insurance program provides risk management tools to address losses in revenue or crop yield. Revenue-based policies account for about 75% of total policy premiums, and yield-based policies account for 25%. Federally subsidized policies protect producers against losses during a particular season, with price guarantee levels established immediately prior to the planting season. This is in contrast to commodity programs, where protection levels are specified in statute (e.g., counter-cyclical payments) or use average farm prices from previous years (e.g., ACRE). Federal crop insurance has grown in importance as a risk management tool since the early 1990s, due in large part to substantial federal support. The federal government pays about 60%, on average, of the farmer's crop insurance premium, plus the administrative costs of delivering the products. Thus, as participation in crop insurance programs has grown over time, so too has the absolute level of federal premium subsidies. CBO projects that the crop insurance program in its current form would cost, on average, $9.0 billion per year ( Table 2 ) through 2022. In 2011, crop insurance policies covered 264 million acres. Major crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton are covered in most counties where they are grown, and policies cover at least 80% of planted acreage of each crop. Crop insurance is also available for over 80 specialty crops. In 2009, specialty crop policies covered more than 7 million acres, or up to 75% of specialty crop area. In total, policies are available for more than 100 crops, including coverage on fruit trees, nursery crops, and dairy and livestock margins, as well as pasture, rangeland, and forage. In an attempt to avoid ad hoc disaster programs that had become almost routine, and to cover additional commodities, the 2008 farm bill included funding for five new disaster programs. However, these programs were authorized only for losses for disaster events that occur on or before September 30, 2011, and not through the entire life of the 2008 farm bill (which generally ends on September 30, 2012). As a result of this early expiration, CBO does not include program funding in future baseline estimates. The largest of the disaster programs is the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE), which is designed to compensate eligible producers for a portion of crop losses not eligible for an indemnity payment under the crop insurance program. Unlike traditional disaster assistance and crop yield insurance, losses are calculated using total crop revenue for the entire farm (i.e., summing revenue from all crops for an individual farmer). The whole-farm feature and the use of 12-month season-average prices—while perhaps fiscally responsible—have made SURE complicated, data-dependent, and slow to respond to disasters. The 2008 farm bill also authorized three new livestock assistance programs and a tree assistance program. The current tight federal budget situation and the global economic difficulties since 2008 contrast sharply with the financial success experienced by the U.S. farm sector in recent years.