08/20/08 Sweet Cherry Insurance

Sweet Cherry Insurance. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Sweet cherry growers in the Pacific Northwest have a new tool to protect their crops according to Risk Management's Jo Lynne Seufer. SEUFER: We've been working towards having a successful risk management program for our sweet cherry growers here in the Pacific Northwest for about the last 5-6 years and now we've got a new one called Actual Revenue History insurance plan for 2009. The program is based off of the producers own financial history. Seufer talks about how the program works. SEUFER: They certify their annual acreage and their productions that includes their crop sales then they will be able to insure their optional units under two types, fresh cherries and processing cherries depending on the county. A grower provides 4 years of annual revenue records building to 10. If a grower doesn't have 4 years of history they will use a transitional revenue yield to determine coverage. SEUFER: It protects against growers losses from low yields, low prices, low quality and that is a huge, significant initiative within this program  or any combination of those. A key feature of this coverage is also that it is a producer based revenue that accounts for the indemnity to reflect economic losses due to poor quality. The sales closing date is November 20 so you will want to get with your local crop insurance salesperson. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.