Expanding coverage for all producers

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Editor’s Note: Farm Policy Facts is pleased to publish a guest editorial from Brandon Willis on the successful efforts since the 2014 Farm Bill to expand risk management tools to more agricultural producers all across the country. Willis oversees the government agency that partners with private-sector companies to deliver crop insurance coverage that is a strong component of the farm safety net.

By: Brandon Willis

As the Administrator of the Risk Management Agency (RMA), I have the opportunity to talk to farmers and ranchers all across the nation about the federal crop insurance program. I am struck by how frequently they share with me the same message – that without crop insurance they would no longer be farming.

The program keeps family farms in the family, even after a bad year, and provides a safety net that allows beginning farmers to pursue their dream of farming. In addition, federal crop insurance provides access to credit and oftentimes lower loan interest rates, which makes obtaining the capital needed to farm more obtainable – especially for those who are just starting out.

Federal crop insurance has become an essential part of the farm safety net due to its ability to provide dependable protection and grow with the needs of farmers and ranchers. Congress recognized its importance by strengthening the program through the 2014 Farm Bill. New tools like the Supplemental Coverage Option and the Actual Production History Yield Exclusion were implemented as a result of the 2014 Farm Bill, providing new options for major row crops, as well as fruit and nut producers.

The number of acres covered by crop insurance has increased from 264.7 million in 2009 to 297.0 million in 2015. The variety of crops covered increased as well, going from 438 in 2009 to 543 in 2015. RMA estimates that 85 percent of planted acreage for major crops is now covered by crop insurance. Even with coverage for most crops greater than ever before, RMA has continued to listen to farmers and ranchers and expand options that meet the needs of diverse farm operations nationwide.

By working with stakeholders, RMA developed Whole­Farm Revenue Protection as a way for smaller diversified producers to insure all of the crops and livestock on their farm under one policy. This policy was first offered in 2015, and by 2016 it was available in every county of every state in the country. Its nationwide coverage is a first for federal crop insurance.

In addition to expanding programs, RMA recently announced changes that will offer American farmers greater flexibility with crop decisions. Some of these modifications relate to the practice of double cropping. Other options provide flexibility for organic producers and those transitioning to organic – a traditionally difficult time for producers to find coverage that matches the costs and price expectations of their commodities.

In order to provide the crop insurance options that work for all producers, the Agency must ensure that its programs are well run. We took steps to cut the Agency’s improper payment rate by more than 50 percent, down from 5.58 percent in 2014 to 2.2 percent in 2015. That figure is half the government average of 4.39 percent. And, by taking further steps, there will continue to be stronger oversight of program dollars.

As farming and farm products change to meet market needs, crop insurance will continue to adapt and expand to meet the needs of our producers. Whether it’s through improvements to existing programs or the introduction of new products, RMA will do its part to find additional ways to strengthen the farm safety net for our rural communities.

Brandon Willis serves as the Administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA).

Crop insurance preserves S.D. farm economy

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South Dakota’s history is deeply rooted in agriculture, perhaps more so than any other state in the union. From the homesteaders who came here in the 19th century, with little more than a plow and a dream, to their descendants who still work the land, agriculture is the way of life for many South Dakotans.

As the president of the S.D. Farm Bureau and a livestock, corn and soybean farmer myself, I can tell you firsthand that our state’s farmers personify a work ethic and a sense of pride and purpose that we are seeing less and less of outside of agriculture these days.

But agriculture is more than just a proud tradition — it’s also S.D.’s top industry, with a $25.6 billion economic impact each year. Our farmers and ranchers generate 20 percent of our state’s economic activity and provide jobs, directly and indirectly, to 122,000 residents.

It’s essential that we preserve S.D.’s farm economy, not just for our own economic well-being, but for all Americans. Our nation’s farmers play an indispensable role in ensuring a safe, affordable and stable food supply. And this role is becoming increasingly important as we struggle to meet the needs of a growing world population. In short, food security is a vital part of our national security and that’s something we need now more than ever.

Unfortunately, our farm economy has seen better days. Our farm families are facing a year of projected below-cost returns on corn, soybeans and wheat. Overall, farm income is also projected to decrease again in 2016. This will be the third consecutive year of declining farm income, following sharp drops in 2014 and 2015 totaling 56 percent in those two years. If the 2016 income projection comes to fruition, it would mark the lowest farm income level since 2002.

This is why having a sufficient farm safety net — with crop insurance as the cornerstone — is more critical than ever. Crop insurance provides protection against the one thing that even the most resilient farmer cannot defeat — the wrath of Mother Nature.

Crop insurance is a unique public-private partnership that not only supports farmers, but eases the burden on taxpayers. Prior to the emergence of crop insurance as the top risk management tool for farmers, natural disasters regularly resulted in very expensive, unbudgeted ad hoc disaster bills from Congress. Now, when disaster strikes, farmers receive an indemnity check.

Let’s be clear, crop insurance is not a handout — far from it. To gain coverage, farmers have to put skin in the game. In fact, since 2000, farmers have spent nearly $30 billion out of their own pockets to purchase crop insurance protection. We only collect an indemnity after we’ve suffered a verifiable loss and met our deductible.

We purchase crop insurance for our family farm every year and have never filed a major claim. But that’s hardly the point. Like our fellow farmers, we purchase crop insurance for the same reasons we purchase home insurance or car insurance — with the hope we’ll never need it. But we’ll keep purchasing it every year because some day we might. Crop insurance gives us peace of mind, and if we ever experience a major crop disaster, would provide us with the resources to keep farming.

Farmers have faced tough times before and rest assured we will get through them again. Old fashioned hard work, innovation and smart farm policies like crop insurance will help ensure that the proud S.D. farming tradition will live on for many future generations, and, in turn, will secure a bright future for us all.

Scott VanderWal is a third-generation family farmer from Volga. He is president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau and vice-president of the American Farm Bureau.

Trust the ag lender, crop insurance cuts would most harm family farms

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This is the time of year when farmers are meeting with their lenders to renew farm operating loans for 2016. The past few years have been challenging for producers as commodity prices have fallen, input costs have risen, and severe weather has damaged or destroyed entire crops. With the downturn in the ag economy, multiple years of lost revenue and less than favorable forecasts for 2016, many producers are facing the tough question: can I afford to continue farming?

Without access to capital, the answer to this question is a resounding no.

I’ve worked in the ag finance business in Texas for more than 30 years and have seen highs and lows in the farm sector. Though those in agriculture have always faced risks, those risks have escalated over the past two decades. Volatility has become the norm rather than an infrequent event. In the last five years farmers have experienced a multi-year drought, hail storms in October, late spring freezes, and too much rain literally drowning their crops. Prices for farm commodities have dropped drastically to below the costs of production as foreign subsidies and market-manipulating policies have drastically risen.

As a way to mitigate these risks and make access to capital possible, Congress selected crop insurance as the primary risk management tool for farmers in the last farm bill. The modern crop insurance system in place today replaced ad hoc disaster relief programs ensuring farmers would have some protection against natural disasters. Congress designed crop insurance to be affordable to the farmer, yet accountable, requiring producers to pay premiums for the insurance coverage on their crops and shoulder a portion of losses through deductibles.

INSURANCE ONLY PROTECTION AVAILABLE FOR COTTON

In the cotton industry, a major crop in the 43 counties served by AgTexas, crop insurance is basically the only risk management tool available to producers. It can literally make the difference between farming another year or losing so much a farmer must call it quits.

From the lending perspective, crop insurance provides a guarantee of a minimum income for a lender to rely on to repay loans should a farmer lose a crop. This insurance guarantee makes it much easier for producers to obtain the financing they need to farm. This is similar to the guarantee any car owner would have on their car loan if they got into an accident. Crop insurance is a safety net for some of the events that cannot be controlled.

For perspective, an average family farm in the panhandle of Texas farms between 1500 to 2500 acres and must borrow $500,000 to $1 million each year to produce a cotton crop. Because of the low price of cotton and the high input costs in 2015, many had farm losses exceeding $150,000. On top of the loss, they still have loan payments, living expenses, and the same farming costs to keep operating another year.

As producers and ag lenders work together to prepare cash flows for 2016, it is extremely difficult to forecast enough income to cover operating loans, meet debt payments, and pay living costs. Especially vulnerable are the young and beginning farmers who face these challenges with limited financial resources. These young producers and multi-generation family farms are the most affected by the volatile prices, increased production costs, and weather uncertainty in their operations.

Some in our country wish to do away with farm programs and any support of a crop insurance system that supports farmers and ranchers who produce the food and fiber that not only feeds and clothes our nation, but also serves other nations around the world. The reality is, without a viable, affordable crop insurance program most of these producers’ businesses will not survive. And if farmers go under, the Main Street businesses they support are not far behind.

Scotty Elston is the Chief Credit Officer at AgTexas Farm Credit in Lubbock, TX.

Farm policy, crop insurance wise investments for all Americans

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Although I was born and raised on a farm, the standing rule in our house was I had to spend two years after college pursuing other things. This was not to discourage me from continuing the family farming tradition. Rather, my father wanted to make certain I knew what kind of life I was signing up for. Perhaps another job elsewhere would provide me with greater financial security and stability than one that was beholden to the weather, markets, foreign subsidies, and even lawmakers in Congress.

I recognized the wisdom in my father’s counsel, but after a couple of years, I knew I wanted to get back to the farm. By then I was married and the thought of raising my family in a small, rural town, combined with returning to the family farm, appealed to me. I have been farming on my own for the past nine years.

What I have learned during this time is this: farming is an enormous game of risk management. It’s not if something bad is going to happen, it’s when. I was aware of this reality growing up, but I fully appreciate it now that I am working to sustain my own farm and support my own family.

Droughts, floods, hailstorms, high input prices, unpredictable commodity prices, the uncertainty of what will come out of Washington whether it is talk of cutting the farm safety net during the life of a farm bill or applying a new regulation that increases the cost of doing business; in addition to competing with foreign governments that cheat on their commitments to free trade and fair markets. These are the challenges that farmers face every year. It is a life that is rife with risk and uncertainty.

Today’s depressed farm economy is a prime example. Commodity prices are half what they were a few years ago while the cost of doing business has not followed the same trend. The financial situation for many farming operations all across the country has deteriorated fast and many lenders are nervous about providing financing.

This is why we need strong farm policy and crop insurance to help us manage things beyond our control like a natural disaster or a collapse in commodity prices.

One of the least understood points about crop insurance is that it’s not just for farmers. That’s how we as farmers talk about it, that it’s a way to keep us in business when we suffer a catastrophic loss. That it’s a way to protect our yearly investment when things go wrong. That is all true, of course, but we don’t explain that it is also insurance for every consumer.

Just look at the drought of 2012 – one of the worst droughts on record – that devastated most of the country. There were times in our nation’s history when that kind of devastation would have put thousands of farmers out of business, especially beginning farmers like me, because farm policy and crop insurance wasn’t what it is today. But, that didn’t happen in 2012. Those risk management tools gave us the ability to stay in business, to make it another year. It provided banks with assurance that operating loans would be repaid despite large losses, and in the process it enabled us to keep a stable and affordable food supply for all American consumers because we were able to begin again.

What affects the farmer will affect the consumer. The tools that help farmers stay viable from year to year and decade to decade, allows consumers to get what they need and want in the grocery stores.

We’re all in this together. We have to remember that fact when Congress begins reauthorizing the next farm bill or some lawmaker in D.C. proposes an arbitrary and irresponsible cut to farm policy and crop insurance. These risk management tools serve us all, especially the next generation of farmers. They are a sound and wise investment for America.

Zach Hunnicutt is a fifth-generation farmer from Giltner who raises corn, soybeans, popcorn, seed corn and milo.

Crop insurance is vital component to U.S. agriculture industry

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Editor’s Note: Farm Policy Facts is pleased to publish a guest editorial from Rep. Jim Costa on the importance of maintaining a strong safety net for farmers. Congressman Costa is a senior member of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture and also served as a conferee during negotiations of the 2014 Farm Bill. We applaud his efforts in supporting American farmers and ranchers.

From working to get a five-year Farm Bill passed to fighting for water for California’s farmers, protecting and growing America’s agricultural economy is one of my top priorities in Congress. This includes preserving a robust farm safety net for producers.

During the latest Farm Bill negotiations, Federal crop insurance was the topic of much conversation, especially relative to the role that direct payments play in modern agricultural production. Some Members and special interest groups attempted to create a narrative that the program is an inefficient “handout” to rich farmers and turn popular opinion against our farm communities. Luckily, we successfully beat back that false rhetoric and passed a farm bill. However, despite how untrue it is, the sentiment that began to develop against farm risk reduction programs like crop insurance has festered.

The truth is that crop insurance is a highly successful public-private partnership between the federal government and private insurance companies. It functions as a risk management tool for farmers to mitigate the numerous risks – financial, meteorological or the like – that they take to produce the finest food and fiber in the world. In 2015, crop insurance providers sold policies for more than a 120 different crops valued at $102 billion and covering 298 million acres. Farmers deserve the opportunity to purchase the same security provided by crop insurance in a similar way that homeowners can protect themselves in the wake of a natural disaster.

As areas of the United States deal with drought conditions, particularly areas such as California’s San Joaquin Valley, crop insurance is very important to a farmer’s bottom line if they are unable to plant or to harvest their crops.

When Congressional leadership negotiated the omnibus budget deal in October 2015, they failed to consult with the House Agriculture Committee and included a provision to drastically reduce the rates of return that crop insurance companies would receive. At a time when rural America is facing challenges, and especially as California is dealing with devastating drought conditions, those cuts would have would have been detrimental for farmers throughout the country and real harm would have been done to the agriculture industry.

House Agriculture Committee members and I successfully urged the budget negotiators to strip the provision in the final deal that would have crippled insurance companies by making it too expensive to provide insurance products. To ensure continued support and success of the crop insurance program, Members of Congress, community leaders, farmers, and consumers who purchase meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and nuts at the grocery must express the importance of the program. If not, we may one day see the program cease to exist, and with that, we will see lost revenue, higher prices at the grocery store, and increased unemployment.

Crop insurance also provides help to beginning farmers and ranchers, as well as socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers and ranchers. It is critical that these individuals have access to the farm safety net, especially as the average age of the American farmer continues to inch higher and higher.

The public needs to understand that growing food is a very risky business, and farmers are price takers, not price makers. Every year, the people who produce our food face numerous risk factors, like weather, high input costs, and the global market, for which they have no control over. With more and more people demanding that rural America produce higher yielding and safer products at lower prices, we need to utilize every tool available in our toolbox, like crop insurance, to help those who sacrifice every day to produce the food and fiber we consume.

Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA-16) is a senior member of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture and the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture. He also served as a conferee during the 2014 Farm Bill negotiations.

Farm policy is essential to maintaining ag production in the U.S.

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If there is one place that, in recent years, overwhelmingly demonstrates the need and importance of U.S. farm policy, it is California. For the past four years, this top agricultural producing state has experienced record drought conditions and for farmers like my husband and me, it has taken a toll on our operation.

We have been growing rice in the Sacramento Valley for 30 years and we have never seen a weather event this relentless. Although the arrival of El Nino has provided much needed rain, the effects are marginal because of the intensity of the drought.

Operating loans are essential for every farmer because of the cost of producing crops, but for my family they have enabled us to keep going to the next year despite depressed yields and prices, and in some cases the inability to plant a crop at all.

We would not be able to receive this crucial financing without crop insurance and farm policy in place. Farming is an inherently risky business and bankers want assurances that we will be able to pay back the loan if disaster strikes. We were not born into farming – we built our operation from the ground up – so we still have land and equipment payments to make regardless of whether we have a good or bad growing season, or whether a natural disaster wipes out our crops altogether. Crop insurance is something we purchase each year to manage this risk and we only receive an indemnity when we suffer a verifiable loss. Even then, it doesn’t make us whole, but it does soften the blow from a bad year.

It’s important to have this kind of safety net in place for all farmers, all across the country. And, I am always alarmed by the calls in Washington to cut what remains of the farm safety net, especially from those who have no idea what it takes to grow food and fiber. We need risk management tools now more than ever to help us overcome unpredictable weather events.

Additionally, we need policy in place to combat unfair practices with our foreign competitors like China and Thailand whose support for their rice growers far exceeds that of the United States and actually violates agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO). While the U.S. was reforming its policy in the 2014 Farm Bill, other countries were ramping up support for their farmers, in some cases by more than a 100 percent. Their policies are trade distorting and leave American growers at a competitive disadvantage.

American farmers can and do manage extraordinary risks, year in and year out, but we cannot manage the challenges associated with unpredictable and sustained natural disasters, volatile markets, and trade distorting policies of our foreign counterparts without risk management tools like crop insurance and farm policy.

Lawmakers in Washington should consider this reality. If they want to continue to have agricultural production in this country, and in California in particular, they need to invest in it.

Lorraine Greco serves on the California Board for the U.S. Rice Producers Association. She grows organic rice with her husband in northern California.

Insurance on crops boosts farms of all sizes

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It is no secret that farm demographics demonstrate an alarming trend in American agriculture.

The average age of the American farmer is rising while the number of beginning farmers is decreasing.

These beginning farmers are typically younger than their more established counterparts with less access to credit and capital.

I see this reality every day as a banker at one of the largest agricultural lending institutions in Indiana. In general, all farmers need access to credit to operate and manage a farm, but it is even more crucial for a young farmer because of the enormous startup costs.

It is not an exaggeration to say that farmers borrow more in a single year to grow a crop than some Americans borrow in a lifetime.

And, frankly, banks can be wary of lending to a young farmer just starting out because of the combination of a short credit history and the inherent riskiness of the business.

The one factor in their favor is crop insurance. By purchasing a policy, young farmers enhance their ability to obtain financing because banks have the assurance they can make payments even during tough times.

But opponents of farm policy in Washington are proposing legislation that, if enacted, would threaten the viability of this important risk management tool and make it harder for young, beginning farmers to survive.

These farm policy critics would have you believe that barring producers with large operations from participating in crop insurance helps smaller farmers.

Actually, it does the opposite.

Pooling of risk is essential for any viable insurance program. Because every farmer of every size in every part of the country can purchase crop insurance, the risk pool is large and diverse, which makes crop insurance affordable for all farmers and minimizes the financial exposure of the bank, the farmer and the taxpayer.

Similarly, car insurers want older, more experienced drivers in the same risk pool as those who are younger and potentially more accident-prone.

Eliminating the more established farmers from the mix shrinks this pool and undermines the entire system, making it harder for smaller, beginning farmers to get insurance coverage and, subsequently, agricultural financing.

Statistics already show us that farming is a hard life with fewer and fewer people willing to try it.

Now is not the time to make starting a farm even more difficult by destroying the viability and affordability of crop insurance.

Now is the time to protect the one thing beginning farmers and their bankers can count on.

By: Joe Kessie, Sr. Vice President, Lake City Bank, Indiana

Crop insurance is money well spent by farmers

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Many folks might not realize this, but the passage of the 2014 Farm Bill was a turning point in American history, from an agricultural perspective. Largely gone are the days of government support programs like direct payments. In their place, and at the center stage of farm risk management tools, is crop insurance.

I had a chance to learn the value of crop insurance first-hand when my cousin and I rented our first farm together in 2012. We’ve been farming with our family for many years, but felt it was time to expand out and grab some of our own. Of course, little did we know that the year we kicked off our farming careers would soon become the driest year in decades. We lost all of our dryland crops, roughly forty percent of our acres that year. Thankfully, we had purchased crop insurance.

Unlike days of old, crop insurance is not a federal handout. In fact, if farmers want to enjoy the protection provided by crop insurance, they must purchase it. And they do so willingly, spending roughly $4 billion per year out of their own back pockets on crop insurance premiums alone.

For most beginning farmers, crop insurance is nearly a necessity, since banks are hesitant to make loans to farmers who lack sufficient collateral. Crop insurance allows banks the opportunity to increase lending capabilities with the security of crop insurance. That’s because with a crop insurance policy in hand, banks feel more secure making those loans to farmers, since there’s a guarantee of revenue even if the crop fails.

Crop insurance is a public-private partnership whereby individual farmers like me can buy policies for insurance that is specifically tailored for our tolerance to risk and the profile of our farm. Crop insurance is affordable to farmers, thankfully, because the federal government provides a discount, ensuring that all farmers, young and old, big and small, can purchase policies if they choose to.

Farmers buy crop insurance for the same reason drivers purchase auto insurance: it offers some degree of stability in times of disaster. Crop insurance has become, in essence, the nation’s insurance policy for the food supply. When Mother Nature strikes and farmers lose their crops, those with crop insurance policies in hand can bounce back and plant again the next year.

Crop insurance has also removed some of the financial risk from taxpayers. Prior to the rise of modern day crop insurance, the wide-scale disaster that we experienced with the great drought of 2012 would have necessitated a very expensive, ad hoc disaster bill from Congress. Those bills are big and are fully funded by taxpayers.

And while anything is better than nothing when you literally lose the farm, those disaster funds usually took a year or more to arrive in the hands of farmers who needed them. In my case when I lost forty percent of my crop in 2012, a year would have been much too late.

Crop insurance, on the other hand, is administered by private insurance companies and the indemnity arrives in weeks or a month or two, not years later. The crop insurance policy I purchased not only allowed me and my cousin to pay back our production loan, but also meet our forward contracting obligations. And we were able to bounce back and plant the next year. That’s a smart public policy because it ensures food security for our nation.

Of course crop insurance has its critics, and their sights are squarely on crop insurance, since it’s really the only game in town. And that’s why it’s important for farmers to speak up and let their elected officials know how much they value this risk management tool.

Needless to say, if we hadn’t purchased crop insurance our first year of farming, my cousin and I would be spending years paying off that production loan. And without this valuable risk management tool available, I’d venture to say many more of America’s farmers would have been joining us.

Scott Reilly is a farmer and crop insurance agent who lives in Spalding, Nebraska. This op-ed appeared in the Albion News on February 3, 2016.

Crop insurance can help keep multi-generational farms within the family

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My farm has been in my family since the mid-1800s. I have seen firsthand how farming has changed over the decades. It is certainly more expensive to farm than when my parents and grandparents and great-great grandparents farmed the land, but one thing hasn’t changed in more than 150 years: farming is an unpredictable business.

Farmers can’t predict the future, but we can make a genuine effort to be smart, informed business owners. We try to make the right decisions and work with what we have. The problem is when ‘what we have to work with’ is ripped out from underneath us. Without crop insurance, many farmers wouldn’t be able to keep farming. Cutting crop insurance would be pulling the rug from underneath agriculture.

Before the modern day crop insurance system, farmers relied on ad hoc disaster relief payments. This was a costly and unpredictable option for all of us – the government, the taxpayer and the farmer, who in some cases may have received a payment too late to avoid bankruptcy.

Congress agreed that crop insurance was the best risk management tool for farmers. In the 2014 Farm Bill, they implemented a crop insurance system that ensured farmers would have access to affordable crop insurance while removing the risk from the taxpayer. In stride, farmers have made operating decisions with the assumption that all the policies of this bill would be in place until the Farm Bill expires in 2018.

Now, in 2015, this proven risk management tool, crop insurance, is in front of the firing squad. I’m not certain why some Members of Congress are willing to turn their backs on farmers now. Washington is nearly 900 miles away from my family farm. From that distance, it may be easy to assume that cuts to farm programs, like crop insurance, would have no effect on farmers, but that’s not an accurate picture.

Crop insurance is the only safety net that most farmers have anymore. Nearly all the cropland in the United States is protected by crop insurance. In Wisconsin, a majority of crop acres are insured, including grain commodities and specialty crops.

Insurance not only allows farmers to face natural disasters and damaging production years without losing everything, but it provides assurance that we can make payments to our banks. The same way any person in this country cannot get a house loan or a car loan without proof of insurance, agricultural banks want the guarantee that farmers can make their payments.

The agriculture economy is struggling. Farm income continues to decline, crop prices are down and inputs continue to rise. The 2015-16 farm year may be a make or break year for many farmers who are ending the year in the red. Forty years ago, a farmer could lose a crop one year and still farm the next. Nowadays one crop loss could end someone’s farming career. In the current state of agriculture, we can’t afford to have another leg chopped off our stool that’s already leaning.

My wife and I have risked our livelihood to maintain the farm for our children and grandchildren, just as my parents and grandparents did for us. Without crop insurance, we would have to quit farming. For the events we can’t predict, crop insurance ensures we won’t lose our multi-generational family farm.

Darrell Crapp is a farmer from Lancaster, Wisconsin. He farms in partnership with his two sons. This op-ed appeared in the Prairie du Chien Courier Press on January 20, 2016.

Keep crop insurance out of the crosshairs

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The passage of the 2014 Farm Bill was the beginning of a new chapter in U.S. farm policy, putting to rest most of the old farm support programs and replacing them with a reformed farm safety net and its centerpiece: Crop insurance.

Unlike farm programs of the past, only farmers who purchase crop insurance enjoy its protection. In fact, when a farmer purchases crop insurance, they are handed a bill, not a check. Crop insurance is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, with farmers paying tens of thousands of dollars per year on premiums for policies that most of them will hopefully not need.

The Farm Bill was a grand compromise. In exchange for $23 billion in spending cuts programs, Congress required market-oriented reforms to commodity programs and made a five-year commitment to ensure the affordability, availability and viability of crop insurance. Unfortunately, anti-farmer groups are targeting crop insurance with proposed cuts that would seriously hamstring the private sector delivery that is the hallmark of success for the program. That would not only threaten to make the system unworkable for farmers, but also endanger the reliability of our nation’s food supply.

Farmers and farm groups value crop insurance because it combines the efficiency of the private sector with the universal coverage of the public sector. Today, virtually any farmer who wants to purchase crop insurance can, and here in Wisconsin, farmers spent roughly $86 million out of their own pockets to do so this year alone. Nationally, that number usually exceeds $4 billion annually.

Remember the historic drought of 2012 that threatened the nation’s heartland and was compared to the dreadful days of the great Dust Bowl? In the past, a disaster of that magnitude would have triggered an overly expensive and completely taxpayer-funded disaster bill. And although those funds were appreciated, they could take months or years to arrive, oftentimes too late to stop a foreclosure.

Things have changed dramatically now that farmers have much improved access to crop insurance, which now protects more than 90 percent of planted cropland. When the drought laid siege to the nation’s heartland, private sector crop insurance adjusters were quickly on the scene, and indemnity checks were usually in the hands of farmers who had verifiable losses in weeks, not months.

Crop insurance worked so well in 2012 that the nation’s farmers bounced back the next year and produced an enormous bounty of grains. And there wasn’t a single call for a disaster bill.

Farmers are the engines that drive the economy of rural America, and without a sufficient safety net in place – like crop insurance – that entire equation is at risk. That is why not only farmers, but ranchers, input suppliers, processors, and equipment companies have all called on Congress to protect crop insurance from any further cuts.

As a farmer, I can tell you that I take great pride in what I do and I understand the important role I play in producing the nation’s food, fiber, feed, and fuel supply. It seems that farmers and consumers alike here in Wisconsin need to remind our congressional delegation of this fact as well.

By: Tom Gillis, President, Wisconsin Corn Growers Association