Crop insurance “has come under unfair criticism. Those who report on it don’t understand it and its importance to the food supply.” He said it’s expensive to put a crop in the ground, and that a farmer could easily have half a million dollars at risk when “Mother Nature says you’re not going to have rain for the next 90 days.”

A farmer who gets a crop insurance policy doesn’t get paid for 100 percent of his loss, he noted.

The general public doesn’t approve of direct payments that crop farmers get whether prices are high or low, he said, but “I think we can make a strong case for crop insurance … and some program to supplement it.