Crop Insurance Strategies

Topic: Crop Insurance Strategies

Rationale: Crop Insurance is a risk management tool many row-crop farmers use to ensure a level of income even in the case of a catastrophic yield or price event. The drought of 2012 proved to many farmers the importance of crop insurance coverage. This topic would be appropriate for your agriculture education program if you are in a row crop producing area.

This topic would be most appropriate in February as this is the time of year when crop insurance information (regulations, prices, changes in policies, etc.) becomes available. In addition, regulations dictate producers must make crop insurance decisions by March 15.

Presenters: A complete list of crop insurance agents is accessible from the USDA Risk Management website. You may need to try the website a time or two to get it to filter the names so you can find someone as local as possible. It is best (when possible) to find someone from your area to present, as they would be familiar with any unique situations that may be present in your locale.

http://www3.rma.usda.gov/apps/agents/index.cfm

Click on the drop-down menu to select crop insurance, click go.

Click on the drop-down menu to select Missouri, click go.

Select your county, and then consider also entering more information in the search criteria. You may want to enter your town name or zip code as there are many out-of-state agents that could come up in your search results.

Another good filter to use would be to simply ask some of the crop producers in your community who they have as a crop insurance agent. Local producers are often a great source for speakers on this topic.