2011 from crop insurance perspective
Farm and Ranch December 13, 2011 Looking back over the 2011 crop year from an insurance perspective, Dave Paul with the regional office of USDA’s Risk Management Agency, says it was a pretty good year. Paul: “We had a fair amount of prevented planting, kind of up in the Lewis, Nez Perce area, up in northern Idaho and way more than we ever had. We probably had about 90-thousand acres of prevented planting in Idaho. But, things did turn around pretty good. From the small grains perspective it is probably one of our best years, since I have been here anyway for the last sixteen years. It think we will have loss ratios that will be some of the lowest we have ever had. In some areas we had record wheat yields. Summer eventually came on and we had a perfect fall for harvesting wheat.” Some perennial crops did have losses. Paul: “Grapes got some significant damage in spots. It was not across the board. But we have had some really, really large losses on grape vineyards from that last November freeze and then a February freeze. Affected some of the cherries and some of the apples. And then just recently, the apple harvest being so late, we did extend the opportunity to harvest from the 5th of November to the 20th of November to give producers in the northwest more time to get that apple crop harvested.” Still, overall Paul says it was a pretty good year. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net. ?
