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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Agriculture Secretary recommends changes to nation’s crop insurance system

Agriculture insurance is becoming a major issue in the U.S. Federal legislators are currently working on a new bill that would reform the crop insurance system, but have yet to define any major benefits that should be awarded to farmers. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has issued recommendations to lawmakers, noting that more emphasis should be put on natural disasters and other environmental factors when reforming the insurance system. Vilsack believes that farmers will benefit most from policies that help them recover from extreme flood events or severe droughts. An…

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Crop insurance a key part of Obama’s federal deficit remedy.

President Obama unveiled his plans to tackle the federal deficit Monday. One of the ways the administration will confront the federal deficit is by making changes to the overarching agricultural infrastructure of the nation. Obama is looking to provide farmers with a $5 billion annual subsidy that will help them regulate the price of crops and purchase crop insurance in order to guard against natural disasters. This will remove the direct payment structure that has been in place in the industry since 1996, however, a move that has garnered a…

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