Spring is the season of new beginnings, bringing warmer weather and sunshine, and college hoops and March Madness! It’s also the time for farmers to decide which spring crops they want to insure for the 2024 crop year.

This is a critical decision for farmers because growing the most abundant and inexpensive food supply in the world doesn’t come without inherent risks, from unpredictable weather and natural disasters to financial losses and crop price declines.

To help manage this risk, farmers should sit down with their crop insurance agent before the March 15 sales deadline to carefully evaluate their crop insurance options. Crop insurance serves as an important risk-management tool designed to provide timely financial assistance to farmers when they need it most.

But what exactly is this deadline? How do farmers participate? What is the role of crop insurance agents?

All of these questions and more are answered in the latest installment of Keep America Growing, a new five-minute monthly podcast all about crop insurance hosted by National Crop Insurance Services President Tom Zacharias.

Take five minutes to listen to the latest episode and catch up on all previous episodes here!