The Agriculture Risk Protection Act of 2000 made major revisions to the federal crop insurance program and provided emergency agricultural assistance. The crop insurance provisions: significantly increased the government subsidy of the program; improved coverage for farmers affected by multiple years of natural disaster

Natural disaster

A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard . It leads to financial, environmental or human losses...

s; and authorized pilot insurance programs for livestock

Livestock

Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

 farmers and growers of other farm commodities that were not served by crop insurance

Crop insurance

Crop insurance is purchased by agricultural producers, including farmers, ranchers, and others to protect themselves against either the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought, and floods, or the loss of revenue due to declines in the prices of agricultural commodities...

, among many other provisions. The emergency provisions made available a total of $7.14 billion in emergency farm assistance, mostly in direct payments (called market loss payments

Market loss payments

Market loss payments is a designation first used in the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Appropriations Act, FY1999 to describe the $3.1 billion in emergency income support payments authorized for eligible grain, cotton, and dairy farmers...

) to growers of various commodities to compensate for low farm commodity prices.