Welcome to "What's Cropping Up"
This is the first edition of the National Crop Insurance Services' "What's Cropping Up" monthly newsletter. We are sending this to you because of your interest in crop insurance. Please feel free to forward this on to any friends or colleagues who share your interest. -- Tom Zacharias, President, NCIS
|
Crop Value, Crop Insurance Coverage At Record High
 At least $110 billion worth of crop insurance liability – the largest amount in U.S. history - will be written this year, underscoring the popularity of crop insurance and the growing value of agricultural commodities, according to National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS).
“The value of our agricultural output is at an all-time high,” said NCIS President, Tom Zacharias, at a March 8 news conference. According to the Federal Reserve Bank this is helping to fuel the overall economic recovery in the U.S.
Best of all, Zacharias noted, “If disaster strikes and puts the valuable 2011 crop at peril, it is the private sector delivery system, and not the U.S. taxpayer, who will be the first line of defense to ensure that America’s farmers do not suffer severe financial hardship due to events out of their control.”
[VIEW THE FULL STORY]
|
2012 Farm Bill Should Hold The Thin Green Line
Minnesota has more at stake than most in 2012 farm bill.
Rural America has been abuzz lately about a term coined by retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark to describe the challenge of feeding more and more Americans with fewer and fewer farmers. His phrase, “hold the thin green line,” sums up what many of us have spent a lifetime trying to convey.
“If we cannot feed, fuel and clothe ourselves, then we cannot defend ourselves. If this one bright spot in our economy is choked off, then recession recovery will certainly stall,” Clark said.
Here in Minnesota, we have more at stake than most when it comes to holding the thin green line.
[VIEW THE FULL STORY]
|
Keeping Crop Insurance Strong
 As lawmakers place farm policy under the microscope again, they should consider 12 essential strengths that make crop insurance the linchpin of the farm safety net programs. In this on-going series, we’ll introduce one strength of crop insurance per month and explain how the sum of these strengths has given us the successful program we have today.
Strength: Producers receive an individualized risk management solution.
Crop insurance is specifically tailored to each individual policy holder, covering the expected yield and revenue risk of each individual producer. The producer is free to select alternative levels of coverage, based on their historic or projected yield.
[VIEW THE FULL STORY]
|
