Partnership Agreements to Develop Risk Management

Partnership Agreements to Develop Risk Management. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Jo Lynne Seufer with Risk Management Agency in Spokane talks about new partnership agreements recently announced in the Pacific Northwest.

SEUFER: They are absolutely tremendous opportunities for so many commodity groups and entities because a lot of their members and producers throughout our Idaho, Oregon and Washington are going to be able to learn a great deal about managing risk on the farm in many different ways. These partners who come to us and make these proposals have several different ideas and options and a host of tools that maybe will help producers better manage those risks on the farm.

Food safety issues and marketing will also be topics covered as different groups take advantage of these awards. Seufer says they have only recently been able to offer these kinds of programs.

SEUFER: What happened in the 1996 Farm Bill is they changed our name and expanded our program areas to include more education and outreach than just the crop insurance we’ve done since 1938 and we being Risk Management Agency we’re a very small agency with only about 480 to 500 employees nationwide so what Congress did in 2000 they expanded a lot of these initiatives

Some $493,551 in partnership agreement awards will help provide new ways for producers to manage agricultural risks, and for outreach and educational opportunities to women, limited-resource, and other traditionally underserved farmers and ranchers.

SEUFER: Anyone except and individual can apply for these and we announce these on an annual basis and these partnership agreements we’ve recently announced here those applicants applied last December and January or March and April depending on which application they submitted. And then it went to a review panel in Washington DC and these are the ones that were approved in our area.

Again the program are varied and do encompass Oregon, Idaho and Washington state’s ag communities.

SEUFER: Take for instance the cattlemen in Oregon and Washington are going to be able to learn about better ways to manage their risk and also succession and interest. How to do estate planning and to better transition that farm from maybe a father to a daughter or father to a son or whatever the case is but they’re going to learn the importance of that and then ways to accomplish that.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.