Alfalfa growers weighed in on federal crop insurance during a listening session held in Woodland, Calif., conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The USDA Risk Management Agency contracted with Agralytica Consulting of Alexandria, Va., to conduct listening sessions around the country in an effort to improve current federal crop insurance for forage producers.
The objective is to provide growers of alfalfa, grass hay, and other forage crops with better protection from weather-related disasters and fluctuations in quality and price.
The current federal crop-insurance program is called the actual production history forage production crop insurance plan. Similar to other federal crop insurance programs, some of the insurance premium is subsidized by government while the balance is paid by growers in insurance premiums.
“We review all types of risks faced by producers and the potential yield-quality or revenue based types of insurance,” said Nick Young, Agralytica’s president and chief executive officer.
“We need producer input to clarify the main issues to better focus on this insurance product.”
Young heard plenty of feedback at the recent listening session held at the University of California Cooperative Extension office in Woodland which focused on the needs of local alfalfa growers.
Alfalfa grower speaks
The three-year drought is a problem for many California alfalfa growers, including Elaine Rominger of 4R Farming Inc. in Arbuckle (Colusa County). Rominger shared insurance challenges based on her own alfalfa-drought experience.
“It’s very hard to collect on a loss,” Rominger told the group. “Our farm is spread out and while our properties are contiguous it’s spread out enough that we have different microclimates and varying water availability.”
Rominger added, “This year we dried up a lot of acres and I don’t know if we’ll get our loss claim paid or not. An adjuster looked at the fields for an estimate, but we haven’t heard back. That’s a problem.”
Fluctuations in alfalfa quality and price also can create insurance problems for growers.
Source - http://westernfarmpress.com/
