David Gammill owns a 1,300-acre wheat farm in Grandfield, in the southwest part of the state, where he has been a farmer for more than 45 years. Gammill also sells crop insurance, a godsend for many farmers and ranchers in a state familiar with natural disasters. There was this year's wildfire that set more than 318,025 acres ablaze in northwest Oklahoma. There was the five-year drought, which began in 2010 and peaked in 2014, the lowest wheat producing year since 1957. When the drought was over, Gammill and other farmers throughout southwestern Oklahoma suffered losses from heavy rain and flooding. Yet Washington, D.C., was quiet — no ad hoc federal emergency disaster relief was cobbled together as was the case in the past. Not because Congress was ignorant of the damage, but because most farmers recouped much of their losses through crop insurance. This was the intended effect — to provide a safety net for farmers — which is why the U.S. government helps farmers pay for this insurance by paying an average of 60 percent of the cost of crop insurance premiums. The Trump administration unveiled its 2018 budget proposal last month, which includes a $40,000 cap to crop insurance subsidies, potentially saving tens of billions of dollars over the next ten years. For next year alone, there is a 21 percent, or $4.7 billion, cut to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The proposal has outraged farmers and agricultural groups across the country. The American Farm Bureau Federation and National Farmers Union have come out strongly against President Donald Trump's budget proposal. “The president's proposed budget is an assault on the programs and personnel that provide vital services, research, and a safety net to America's family farmers, rural residents and consumers,” said National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson. “Clearly, this budget fails agriculture and rural America,” said American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall. There are several types of crop insurance. With multi-peril crop insurance, farmers pay a yearly premium to make sure they recover money lost due to disasters such as drought, fire or flooding. If a field's estimated yield would amount to $40,000 and the farmer insured 75 percent of its value, the farmer would receive $30,000 if a fire wiped out the field. Currently, the subsidy pays a percentage of the premium. Factors such as crop type, historical yield and price of the crop determine the cost. Gammill says the subsidies are the only way many farmers can afford crop insurance at all. Not only did the succession of natural disasters inflict massive damage to crops and pastures, they have also massively driven up premiums. “It's already hard for farmers to get crop insurance because of the disasters in recent years,” Gammill said. “If it gets too expensive, there's no point.” He says the $40,000 proposed cap would force many large operations out of the insurance pool, which would further compound the problem. “When the pool shrinks, everybody's premiums will go up,” Gammill said. Trump also is proposing to save $6 billion over 10 years through cuts that include eliminating federal funding to some conservation programs such as a Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act, a program that provides money to rehabilitate and repair aging dams. There are also cuts to agricultural research spending, SNAP and the rural development office — in charge of providing small loans, housing assistance and infrastructure developments to rural cities. Trump's budget proposal is simply a proposal, and Congress rarely follows the executive budget closely. But proposals indicate the priorities of the president, who drew much of his support from rural Americans, the group that would be most impacted by these deep cuts. There were numerous questions about the proposed cuts in town hall meetings U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas held in Perry and Stillwater last week. Trump received an average of 73 percent of the vote in those counties. Lucas serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and assured constituents that the cuts probably won't pass: “You can't just defund crop insurance,” he said. Source - http://newsok.com