CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Trent Patterson, Lake County, Tennessee
For Trent Patterson, 2012 was a very dry year. Drought parched much of Tennessee, where he farms about 4,500 acres planted to cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat. The drought forced farmers like Patterson to switch crops from the flagship cotton to soybeans, which requires less agricultural inputs. With crop insurance as part of most farmers’ […]
CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Jimmy Miller, Interlachen, Florida
For centuries, blueberries were gathered from the dense forests and bogs by Northeastern U.S. Native Americans, and are one of the only fruits we consume that are native to North America. So when most of us hear about blueberry farms, we conjure up images of cool, damp climates and cold winters. Except on Jimmy Miller’s […]
CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Bob and Mike Buntin, Thompsonville, Illinois
The choices Illinois farmers faced in the past when drought struck the Midwest were unpleasant all around. They could borrow money from family, drain their hard-earned savings or go under. In the last decade, crop insurance has made it possible for brothers Robert (Bob) and Michael Buntin, owners of Buntin Bros., Inc. in Thompsonville, to […]
CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Whitney Blodgett, Shoreham, Vermont
Whitney Blodgett has been farming in the family’s Vermont apple orchard, commercially known as “Sentinel Pine Orchard,” his whole life. Blodgett says that the family purchased the orchard in 1964, and have since grown, adding the abandoned dairy farm next door. Sentinel Pine Orchard, is comprised of 220 acres of apple trees, mostly planted in […]
CROP INSURANCE IN ACTION: Mike Garavaglia, Vero Beach, Florida
Florida accounts for roughly 70 percent of the U.S. annual production of citrus, of which the vast majority goes into processing, mostly for orange juice. Citrus is big business in the Sunshine State, and Mike Garavaglia is one of Florida’s many citrus growers who make their living putting fresh citrus on the tables of America’s […]
Crop Insurance Leader Asks Congress to Do No Harm
“How crop insurance emerges from the 2012 Farm Bill process will hold major ramifications for this risk management program and for America’s farmers and ranchers who have come to rely on it,” Steve Rutledge told the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on March 15, 2012. Rutledge, who spoke on behalf of crop insurance […]
Agriculture Risk Happens, Even Where You Didn’t Expect It
As a former Chief Economist for USDA, I can attest to the fact that farming is indeed a very risky business. Recent news reports out of USDA’s Risk Management Agency underscore that point all too clearly: With some 15 percent of all crop insurance claims yet to be processed, crop insurance companies have paid out […]
Keith Collins on Insurance Payments
Crop insurance companies already have paid $9.1 Billion in indemnity payments to US farmers for 2011. That a new record, and actually the largest lost claims in the history of the program according to USDA’s Risk Management Agency, and only 81% of claims have been finalized. Former USDA chief economist Keith Collins says during the […]
