The USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) has announced the start of a new pilot pistachio crop insurance that will start with the crop year in 2012. The Pistachio Crop Insurance Program will make coverage accessible to 21 California counties, as well as one in New Mexico and two in Arizona. The names of the counties where the insurance will be available will soon be announced. The length of the pilot program is anticipated to be two years and the policy will be production based. The program itself received its initial…
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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…
Read MoreThe changing face of federal crop insurance
Bill Murphy, an administrator at the Risk Management Agency (RMA) has announced that the Federal Crop Insurance program will be undergoing some positive changes in the near future. Murphy was present at the Big Iron Farm Show in West Fargo and spoke to the crowd about the current year’s issues as well as changes to the program. Not all of the news was good, as Murphy did need to discuss the unprecedented number of catastrophes in 2011 that left farmers hurting this year; from the overly wet soil in North…
Read MoreCrop 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…
Read MoreAgriculture groups seek more protections against severe weather with insurance safety net
Extreme weather is presenting a unique and complicated problem to the nation’s farmers. With many decrying climate change as a scientific impossibility, famers have been left handling the issue of uncommonly severe weather without a place to put the blame. In fact, most farmers do not even mention climate change when discussing the issue, focusing their concerns more on the protection of their crops and mitigating any losses they experience. This has led to a rampant increase in demand for crop insurance throughout the nation. Crop insurance can help farmers…
Read MoreFarmers hope crop insurance will replace shrinking government check
The landowners and farmers who have traditionally relied on the receipt of a government check to help with their survival, regardless of the profitability of their farms, will soon be facing the shrinking or elimination of those subsidy checks. The congressional super committee responsible for designing the fall plan for dramatically reducing the federal budget is predicted to take aim at those subsidy payments. Lobbyists and other supporters of the farmers are struggling to develop a new and less expensive way to subsidize the farms and which would offer farmers…
Read MoreAgricultural groups support crop insurance, export promotion, and research
According to a North Dakota agricultural groups spokesperson, as the groups ready themselves for federal spending cutbacks, the next federal farm bill’s top priorities should be crop insurance, export promotion, and research. State director for U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Shane Goettle, explained that there will be fewer resources with which to work. He added that it is very important that they keep a steady communication regarding the farm bill’s priority as they will be responsible for deciding what will need to be cut and what must be maintained. Goettle…
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