Crop insurance in the farm bill is now up for debate in the Senate

Crop insurance program 2014

The cuts to the federally subsidized program are facing consideration by Senators this week. This week, the Senate is now debating the proposed cuts to the federally subsidized crop insurance program, as an element of the enormous farm bill which is also being considered. On Monday, the Obama administration said that it wanted greater cuts to the subsidies and coverage. They stated that they wanted more crop insurance cuts in the legislation, and that the farm subsidies should also be reduced. The current proposal would cost nearly $100 billion per…

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Crop insurance payouts may come at a cost

Crop Insurance

As the planting season edges nearer in 2013, Nebraska is among the states that have collected the most. Among all of the states in the country, Nebraska is one of the six in which its farmers have collected crop insurance payouts worth over $1 billion due to damage that was caused by the drought last year. That disastrous growing season led to over $12.3 billion in payouts as of Monday. However, the most recent statistics that have been released by the Risk Management Agency of the federal government has also…

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Risk Management Agency pushes back deadline on crop termination, giving farmers more flexibility with their insurance coverage

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency has announced that farmers will have more time to ensure that their crops are properly insured after an uncommonly wet spring last year. Farmers are required to terminate their cover crops in order to obtain insurance coverage for their main crops. The original deadline for this termination was scheduled for May 15 of this year. The Risk Management Agency has pushed that back to June 5. Farmers will be required to terminate their cover crops regardless of their stage of growth by…

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Understanding the insurance overlaps among crop, ACRE, and SURE coverage

A report has been released by economists from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the topic of overlaps by the various farm safety net programs, investigating the possibility for fraud by those crossovers, but determined that there was very little evidence of its occurrence. However, the hope is that the new Farm Bill will divide the programs in a way that will minimize the potential of overlaps in the future. One of the best examples of farm program complexity is ACRE. The low participation in the program is…

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