Farmers Shoulder Nearly $17 Billion in Losses in 2012
Before farmers received a single dime in crop insurance indemnity payments, they shouldered $12.7 billion in losses as part of their deductibles to crop insurance policies, according to a guest editorial published today by Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS). “When combined with the $4.1 billion farmers paid out of their own […]
Crop Insurance: An Approach That Better Fits This Nation’s Fiscal Reality
The historic drought that wilted the corn and soybean fields of Illinois and other Midwest states was one of the costliest events to hit rural America in decades. As the nightly news reported, losses on farms in large swaths of the Midwest were staggering, with some farmers having such low yields that harvesting was a […]
Do No Harm to Farm Insurance
By Andrew Bowman, Oneida, Illinois Hearings have started in Washington on the next farm bill. I count myself as one of the many farmers who will stand together and urge Congress to “do no harm” to crop insurance, which has become the front line risk management tool for American farmers. Crop insurance is a public-private […]
CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Marvin Jensen, Kensington, Minnesota
Local legend has it that a group of Vikings happened upon this part of west-central Minnesota in 1362 and left runic inscriptions on a piece of stone. Hundreds of years later, a local farmer found the stone, and the discovery has forever added an air of mystique to the town on Kensington, Minnesota, and the […]
NCIS Responds to Environmental Working Group’s Accusations – May 1, 2013
A recent report prepared by Bruce Babcock and funded by the Environmental Working Group calls crop insurance “a bloated, taxpayer-funded income support program” and that farmers are profiting from the 2012 drought because of crop insurance. Is this true? Absolutely not. It should come as no great surprise that the recent EWG report prepared by […]
Keep Crop Insurance Affordable in New Farm Bill
By Bing Von Bergen There is a lot of buzz in Washington again this year about the prospects of a farm bill. For those of us in agriculture, a five-year farm bill is one of the few things Congress can do to take some of the guesswork out of farming. That’s because farming is an […]
Opinion column: President’s proposals would undermine agriculture’s success
By Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) Earlier this month, President Barack Obama released his budget even though it was due on Feb. 4. While the House and Senate have already passed 10-year budget resolutions and the president’s proposals have little chance of being enacted, it is a revealing look at his priorities and vision for America. […]
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“The federal government provides crop insurance subsidies to farmers in part to achieve high crop insurance participation and coverage levels, which are intended, according to USDA economists, to reduce the need for ad hoc disaster assistance payment to help farmers recover from natural disasters which can be costly.”
Adequate coverage is important to farmers and bankers
Crop Insurance Agent Todd Harris
