Crop Insurance: Giving food a fighting chance

With the wheels of the new Farm Bill currently in motion in D.C., out have come the attacks on Federal Crop Insurance. While the usual misleading arguments are thrown around from one newspaper to the next, the truth remains: Federal Crop Insurance works for all farmers and it is the best risk management tool available for our country’s food producers today.

Believe it or not, America’s farmers carry a lot of weight on their shoulders when it comes to food. Our farmers continue to be the most productive in the world as they meet demands domestically and abroad. That story of success carries a large amount of financial risk due to their inability to control Mother Nature who can either make or break their crops.

That is why Federal Crop Insurance was put into place, to ensure that the people growing our food can weather the storms and remain ready to continue feeding the growing world. If producers weren’t protected financially, many of them would simply have to try to make a living doing something other than farming, hurting rural America, our country’s agricultural infrastructure and long-term ability to continue producing abundant crops.

The program does come at a cost as farmers pay for Federal Crop Insurance. Federal Crop Insurance resembles that of auto insurance. The more car wrecks you get into, the riskier you become to insure, costing you more to maintain that coverage. With crop insurance, the more disaster claims you have, the bigger risk that farm becomes, lessening its coverage benefits in the event of disaster.

As progress on the Farm Bill continues with certain cuts coming to farm programs, Congress needs to ignore the one-sided analysis and support Federal Crop Insurance, a vital and working program that continues to protect our nation’s food supply.