Crop Insurance in Farm Bill
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Senate Ag members are stressing the importance of crop insurance and the need to restructure commodity programs for the next Farm Bill.Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow led the call …
STABENOW … “Crop insurance is the number one risk management tool for producers, but historically, hasn’t been available to some farmers who are most in need of it. I’m going to continue to focus on expanding and strengthening crop insurance for all our farmers.”
Senate GOP Whip and South Dakota Senator John Thune …
THUNE … “Crop insurance and commodity programs must be maintained, and where possible, improved in the next farm bill to help producers face challenges from high inflation and input costs to adverse weather events.”
USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Robert Bonnie …
BONNIE … “We are committed to crop insurance. We know how important it is in your neck of the woods, but it’s important across the country. And we think creating incentives for producers to take advantage of crop insurance, the same thing on the NAP side, the more we can do to get them into those safety net programs, we think that’s critically important.”
But with possible budget cuts, top Senate Ag Republican John
Boozman called for ways to reallocate dollars …
BOOZMAN … “We’re spending the money, anyway, and 70 billion dollars is a huge amount of money compared with the three billion dollars, less than three billion dollars, that are in the actual programs. How do we capture, maybe capture some of that $70 billion and put it into programs that people can rely on.”
The American Farm Bureau predicts a 16% drop in net farm income this year on top of a further 4% hike in record costs.