The crop insurance season for 2015 ends this week. If a farmer's planting of the 2015 crop was delayed or it didn't meet the guaranteed yield, an indemnity payment may be coming. But crop insurance for the future has occupied many discussions in the halls of Congress over the past several weeks, and likely will for days to come, well after it is over for this cropping season. When the House and Senate approved a two-year budget deal in early November, it eliminated a $3 billion guarantee for  crop insurance sought by the agriculture committees to keep crop insurance companies afloat in times of crop failures for farmers and severe financial stress for the companies that pay out indemnity payments. When House and Senate Agriculture committee leaders learned of the cut they told their party leaders that the ag committee members would withhold their votes for the budget deal, which could threaten its passage. In turn the House and Senate leadership agreed to restore the cuts, and that occurred Thursday. The crop insurance funds were restored and attached to the $305 billion highway funding bill. Agriculture groups seemed happy.  The president of the American Soybean Association said, “Soybean farmers across the country rely on crop insurance in times of extreme weather to ensure they can stay in business to farm in the coming year. An ill-advised $3 billion in cuts would have severely hobbled the program, and we're happy to see them reversed.” But not all agriculture groups were happy.  The editor of the Drovers Cattle Newsletter wrote the cuts should have remained. He said, “Crop insurance is one of the top enemies of beef production since it has supported ethanol-based corn acreage expansion and raised the price of range land being converted to corn. Subsidized crop insurance tips the scales toward crop production on a limited land base because it reduces risk. Put simply, when a farmer and a rancher are bidding on land, the one with the most money wins.” Angry, he was. Then there are the perennial critics of crop insurance. One of those is the Environmental Working Group which cited a study by Iowa State University ag economist Bruce Babcock which said the loss of $3 billion wouldn't kill crop insurance, but provide a more efficient delivery system. Essentially that is a system with fewer crop insurance agents to help farmers determine crop damage and file claims. But another ag economist, who is an advocate of crop insurance as a risk management tool, said future fights over crop insurance policy will have a lot of soldiers. Art Barnaby at Kansas State University said crop insurance supporters include crop insurance underwriters and agents, but also ag lenders, commodity brokers, grain elevator managers, equipment dealers, some federal employees, rural main street merchants and more. Barnaby added, “There are more players here than you might initially think. You have a bunch of people who have a dog in this fight.” Other critics on Capitol Hill already have some anti-crop insurance legislation written and introduced.  It isn't only designed to eliminate the $3 billion to entice crop insurance companies to participate, but it is designed to also eliminate a major provision that attracts farmers to use crop insurance, and also eliminate many farmers from using it. That only reduces the pool of those paying in and means taxpayers will have a bigger burden in years of crop failures. Nevertheless, that is the next proposal to modify crop insurance and it will be the next fight. Source - http://herald-review.com