Josh Norris was like many eastern Corn Belt growers who waded through too much rain at planting time in 2011. Delayed planting probably cost him 15-20 bu./acre in corn yield. But thanks to insurance checks for about $90/acre that paid for anticipated corn and soybean losses through a unique new private weather insurance program, trips to the mailbox were happy events. And he has booked all of his corn, beans and wheat in the program for 2012.
Norris, a Middleton, IN, grower, normally has a corn, soybean and winter-wheat crop rotation. His corn averages 180-185 bu./acre, soybeans yield about 50 bu. and wheat about 70 bu./acre. He regularly buys RMA multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI) to protect against disaster production situations.
“I usually go with 80-85% (MPCI) with enterprise units,” Norris says, which gives him a yield guarantee of about 140 bu. for his corn crop.
But what about the bushels between 140 – where his MPCI stops – and the 190 bu. that Norris was shooting for? In his case, those bushels were covered by an additional “gap” policy called Total Weather Insurance (TWI) from The Climate Corporation.
The Climate Corporation (www.climate.com), formerly known as WeatherBill, provides the TWI program to corn, soybean and wheat growers who seek protection for top-end yields that their MPCI program doesn’t cover.
Sold through crop-insurance agents, TWI operates similar to automobile gap insurance, which provides funds toward complete replacement of a totaled-out car or pickup, money normally not there through a typical collision insurance policy.
With TWI, a grower can’t fool Mother Nature into skipping his farm with excessive rainfall, heat or an early freeze. But it can provide protection if weather events happen which are likely to reduce his crop production.
It’s estimated that more than 90% of all crop damage comes from weather-related situations, says Jeff Hamlin, The Climate Corporation’s director of agronomic research. The weather-gap policy helps manage projected yield losses from the weather.
The company has access to and analyzes an incredibly large amount of weather data. “Using National Weather Service data we are able to track rainfall for any 2.5 x 2.5 mile area in the continental U.S., which helps us provide farm-level protection against bad weather,” Hamlin says. “The rainfall grids we are using this year (2012) provide more than 25 times higher resolution than what we had for the 2011 crop year.”
Hamlin says TWI’s corn program provides a set of coverage components that protect against the major weather perils (see illustration) growers may face throughout the corn-growing season. They include:
• Planting rain, which protects against excessive precipitation that can delay timely planting and other fieldwork.
• Drought with soil moisture tracker, which protects against depleted soil moisture that can cause wilting, pollination issues and decreased yields.
• Daytime heat stress, which protects against hot days that can reduce crop growth and result in ineffective pollination.
• Nighttime heat stress, which protects against warm nights that may result in diminished kernel growth due to increased plant respiration.
• Excess rain with soil-moisture tracker, which protects against excessive local rainfall that can lead to standing water, which starves the crop of oxygen and promotes disease.
• Low heat units/freeze, which protects against a cool growing season or early freeze events that can prevent corn from reaching full maturity.
Source - http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/
