Apple insurance

Apple growers, you are almost at the end of what has been a four year USDA re-evaluation of your crop insurance program, and USDA has just put out its final proposed changes in the program for apples. Marsha Bunger runs the USDA's risk management agency, and she says some of these changes are strictly apple oriented, very technical, mostly, though, giving growers more choices, for example: enabling producers to select different coverage levels and price selections by type, which makes it more flexible. And we're also going to allow producers to insure at higher price for Apple sold predominantly to direct market. All the proposed changes now open for public comments. To get started on that, go online to RMA.USDA dot gov. Click on what's new and you'll see a press release with details on how to see the proposals and comment on them. I would encourage people to go in and take a look and to provide some good feedback. Speaker1: The comment period ends mid-February. Some of the changes to the Apple program are going to be enabling producers to select different coverage levels and price selection by type, which makes it more flexible for individual producers to manage their own individual risk and coverages. It's also going to allow producer premiums to be reduced in response to orchard management practices, such as removing or grafting trees that typically occur after acreage reporting time. And we're also going to allow producers to insure at higher price for Apple sold predominantly to direct market premium processing markets, and the proposed rules also exclude Apple sold for Slicer Market from being considered fresh Apple production.cc