08/26/08 RMA's initial price elections for 2009

Farm and Ranch August 26, 2008 USDA's Risk Management Agency has announced initial price elections for Multi-Peril Crop Insurance for some 2009 crops. Dave Paul, Director of RMA's regional office in Spokane has those prices. Paul: "The yield based MCPI wheat coverage was set at $6.50 per bushel. Barley $4.60 per bushel. Canola was 22 cents per pound. Rapeseed was just over 23 cents per pound. Additionally, there is a possibility of announcing some additional prices on those commodities, and if we have additional prices we would announce those around September 15th." The sales closing date for fall planted canola and rapeseed is next week, September 2nd and although the closing date for wheat is not until September 30th Paul says allow plenty of time to meet with your crop insurance agent. Paul: "You know there are a lot of tough decisions for producers to make as they look ahead to insuring next year's wheat crop. Great flexibilities. A lot of options. Certainly the ability to lock in revenue type of coverage at a high price and even lock in a yield based coverage at a pretty significant price is very attractive to growers. But with those options there are costs associated with those." Tomorrow, changes in revenue coverage for 2009. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.