The University of Idaho has hired Colby Field as area extension educator of risk management.

He is based on the main campus in Moscow.

Field’s comprehensive approach and interest in nontraditional risk management reflect a family and professional background in agriculture.

“I come from a long family line of people who were either farmers, or teachers, or both,” he said in a UI news release.

“I have a background from the other side of what farmers are looking for,” Field said. “What are the resources they need? One of the assets I bring is knowing what day-to-day operations are — knowing about the seasonality of farm work and what farmers are concerned about with the costs of things and the challenges in agriculture.”

While many people think of traditional crop insurance when they look at risk management, “I have more interest in nontraditional risk management,” he said.

For example, ranchers may buy rainfall insurance. But using USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program — which pays growers to plant marginal farmland to benefit wildlife rather than for harvest — may also offer protection under certain circumstances. During drought declarations, restrictions on grazing or haying may be eased or waived.

And while farmers can reduce risk by diversifying, they can increase profit by specializing in one commodity, increasing economies of scale and spreading fixed costs over more acres.

Field is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology.

He also will emphasize revitalizing UI Extension farm succession programs, helping to prepare enterprise budgets emphasizing production costs in major Idaho commodities, and exploring the economics of various production practices and farm-management decisions, according to UI.

He double-majored in agricultural business and economics at Montana State University and this year earned a master’s in applied economics from UI. He worked for more than three years as assistant manager of a farm in the Palouse region, and earlier worked for Columbia Grain in Lewiston, Idaho.