Hartwell Huddleston is a recipient of the 2024 Crop Insurance Industry Outstanding Outreach Award, which was presented during the 2024 Crop Insurance Industry Annual Convention in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Outstanding Outreach award recognizes an individual who provides outstanding service to all farmers, including outreach to small, limited resource, and socially disadvantaged farmers.

Hartwell Huddleston is a crop insurance agent and the president of Delta Crop Insurance. Over the years, he and his team have made themselves an invaluable resource for the African American farming community in their area, and to the broader communities surrounding the towns of Rolling Fork and Greenville in Mississippi. Their hard work and tireless outreach are more than deserving of recognition by the NCIS.

The team at Delta Crop Insurance provides exemplary service to every one of their producers, treating each farmer the same as any other including those with limited resources or a lack of prior knowledge about crop insurance. They always make themselves available to each of their clients and are a constant source of education and service for growers in the area. Each year, they are careful to ensure that all their policyholders are equipped with the knowledge and resources they need to navigate planting season and the acreage reporting and production reporting deadlines.

Even in the face of tragedy, Mr. Huddleston and his employees act as stalwart servants of their farmers and of their community. In March of 2023, Rolling Fork was devastated by a catastrophic tornado. Though the Delta Crop Insurance office was destroyed, the team continued to fight for their policyholders every single day. Battling damaged infrastructure and communication challenges, they managed to reach out to all their growers—especially those with limited resources, who were most vulnerable to the effects of the disaster—to make sure their needs were met, their claims were worked, and they had what they needed to keep farming.

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PHOTO: Hartwell Huddleston was presented with a 2024 Crop Insurance Outstanding Outreach award by Scott Arnold (right) Chair of the National Crop Insurance Services Board of Directors, and Tom Zacharias (left), President of National Crop Insurance Services.