03/07/08 Additional price elections for 2008 crop insurance

Washington Ag March 7, 2008 USDA's Risk Management Agency has announced additional price elections for various 2008 crop year Multi-Peril Crop Insurance commodities in the Pacific Northwest. Dave Paul, Director of the regional office of the RMA in Spokane, says this is how the insurance program adjusts to the volatility we have seen in the marketplace since established prices were initially announced. Paul: "The program has a mechanism to adjust for that and in many commodities we are announcing or are planning to announce an additional price election prior to the March 17th sales closing date." Here are some of the commodities and their new additional price elections; Barley $4.50 a bushel. Spring canola 24 cents a pound. Corn $4.75 a bushel. The new price election for lentils is 25 cents a pound; for dry peas 13 cents. For potatoes its $6 a hundredweight. Processed sweet corn in Washington is $115 a ton. Additional price elections have also been announced for several categories of dry beans. Price election choices must be made on or before the sales closing date for the crop. For these spring crops that is March 17th. I'm Bob Hoff.