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Path to the 2018 Farm Bill: Priorities for Sustainable Agriculture

April 14, 2017 by Brian Shobe Leave a Comment

Written by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). Original post here.

Author’s Note: As a lead up to the 2018 Farm Bill, around which discussions and debate in Congress have already begun, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is previewing some of the major programs and policies that advocates need to know in order to effectively engage. This final post in our series, “Path to the 2018 Farm Bill,” focuses on key legislative and grassroots campaigns that NSAC will be championing over the coming year. These priorities include programs and policies that support the next generation of American farmers and ranchers, local and regional food systems, on-farm conservation programs, a more accountable farm safety net, and more diversity in our public seed supply.

NSAC Summer Meeting, 2017. Farm tour of Rogers Farm Forage and Crop Research Facility. Photo credit: Reana Kovalcik.

As we continue the march toward the 2018 Farm Bill, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has used our “Path to the 2018 Farm Bill” blog series to unpack the complex food and farm policy issues that will likely be at the center of the upcoming debates. Over the course of our series, we covered agricultural conservation programs, our food safety net (i.e., the programs of the Nutrition Title), our farm safety net (commodity and crop insurance programs), and the innovative programs in the farm bill that support sustainable food and farming systems.

Although we won’t be launching our official Farm Bill Platform until later this fall, we are closing our “Path to the 2018 Farm Bill” series with a sneak peek at the top legislative and grassroots campaigns that we will be championing in the next farm bill. NSAC’s Farm Bill Platform will cover the broad array of food and farm issues that impact farmers and those working for a sustainable food system, focusing on five major policy campaigns:

  • Comprehensive conservation reform
  • Beginning farmers and ranchers
  • Local and regional food systems
  • Seeds and breeds research
  • Crop insurance reform

Below, we offer a preview of the work that our 118-member coalition will be doing over the coming 18 months. Additional details on each of these campaigns will be forthcoming, as specific policy proposals are developed.

Advancing Land Stewardship: Comprehensive Conservation Title Reform

Privately-owned crop, pasture, and rangeland account for nearly half of land in the U.S. Given the enormity of agriculture’s footprint – combined with the fact that these “working lands” intersect with shared natural resources like rivers and lakes – it makes sense that farmers and ranchers would have a significant role to play in sustaining our nation’s natural resources. NSAC will seek to win support for programs that help farmers and ranchers implement and enhance conservation systems on their operations. We will also work to ensure that these programs are increasingly accessible, transparent, and outcomes-based. Our comprehensive conservation campaign will seek reforms to ensure that federal conservation programs and requirements:

  • Are flexible and accessible for small and mid-sized farms, as well as for organic, diversified, and rotational grazing operations.
  • Incentivize continual conservation improvements on land in agricultural production.
  • Protect the most marginal and environmentally sensitive acres through long-term contracts and easements.
  • Include evaluation tools to assess conservation outcomes.
  • Adequately protect against soil erosion and grassland loss.

NSAC will seek to: develop a clearer linkage between cost share payments through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and comprehensive conservation assistance through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); ensure that any increases to the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage cap are not offset with cuts to working lands conservation program funding; and protect and build upon the linkage between conservation and crop insurance that was reestablished in the 2014 Farm Bill.

Increasing Opportunity: Beginning Farmers and Ranchers

Over the last decade Americans have become increasingly interested in food – where it comes from, how it is produced, and by whom. The increased demand for regionally produced food and organic products, and the growing awareness of the need for more sustainable food systems has created significant opportunities for growth through value-added agriculture. Unfortunately, high barriers to entry, such as difficulty accessing affordable farmland, high upfront startup costs, and inadequate training and technical assistance, make it difficult for beginning farmers and ranchers to pursue careers in agriculture.

Young and beginning farmers entering agriculture today have different needs and face different challenges than those who started farming decades ago. These new farmers tend to operate smaller farms and have more diversified operations; and an increasing number of them come from non-farm backgrounds and therefore struggle to access to farmland, which has traditionally been passed down from generation to generation.

In order to ensure a successful American agricultural economy for years to come, NSAC will be launching a national campaign to advocate for a farm bill for the future. The key policy proposals of this campaign will:

  • Increase access to farmland by funding land-link, farm transition, and succession planning initiatives.
  • Empower new farmers by providing them with the skills to succeed, expanding support for beginning farmer training and technical assistance programs, and launching a national asset building and financial literacy initiative.
  • Increase conservation and loan support to ensure that beginning farmers have the resources they need to enhance their operations.
  • Improve risk management options for new farmers.

Congress has a unique opportunity in the 2018 Farm Bill to develop a national beginning farmer and rancher strategy that breaks down barriers to entry and ensures a future for American family farming and sustainable food production.

Investing in Regional Food Economies: New Markets and Rural Development

Farmers across the country are struggling to cope with rock-bottom commodity prices. In this time of economic uncertainty, producers are increasingly looking to diversify and grow their customer bases by tapping into local, regional, and organic markets. Just when farmers and communities need it most, however, the federal support that catalyzes job creation through local and regional food and farm economies is being threatened with rollbacks and crippling budget cuts.

Many of these programs run out of money at the end of the 2018 fiscal year. Others are being targeted through the budget process. This includes the Value Added Producer Grants Program (VAPG), Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP), and Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program (FMLFPP) among others.

NSAC and our allies across the country will be looking to strengthen these threatened programs and policies that improve farm viability and support local and regional food value chains. NSAC’s 2018 Farm Bill campaign on local and regional food systems will:

  • Promote infrastructure development that enables local and regional food systems to expand and diversify beyond direct marketing.
  • Reduce barriers to entry into local and regional food markets, especially for beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
  • Build up opportunities to create and expand value-added agriculture enterprises.
  • Develop and advance local food and farm-based solutions and initiatives to address hunger and diet-related chronic diseases.

NSAC’s legislative campaign will champion reforms across multiple titles of the next farm bill, and seek to promote federal programs and policies that will strongly support the growing local and regional food sectors of the agriculture economy. The campaign’s goals include: improving existing federal farm bill programs, advancing new and innovative initiatives, and advocating for secure funding for programs that catalyze rural economic development and improve consumer access to local healthy food.

Specifically, NSAC will seek to: increase funding for FMLFPP, VAPG, and RMAP; facilitate broader and more efficient use of EBT (formerly known as “food stamps”) at direct market farming operations; create a new GAP and Group GAP Certification Cost-share Program; improve marketing and rural development program delivery and innovation through a new regional partnership initiative; and enhance technical assistance for small and very small meat processing plants.

Securing Seeds for the Future: Public Plant Breeding Research and Development

Everything in agriculture starts with seeds. Seeds are the building blocks of our food system, and farmers require seed stocks that are regionally adapted to meet their needs and farming conditions. Public access to seeds is critical to the future of agriculture, and to all farmers’ ability to successfully adapt to the challenges of a changing climate.

Over the past 20 years there has been a steady decline in our investment in our nation’s public sector breeding and research programs (housed primarily within the land grant university system and USDA research facilities). Because of this divestment, we have lost over a third of our country’s public plant breeding programs, leaving American farmers ill-prepared to meet market demands and adapt to increasingly extreme weather patterns. Without renewed funding for the development of publicly available plant varieties, our farmers will be at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world.

In the upcoming farm bill, NSAC will join with our allies and research partners to launch our first ever “Seeds and Breeds” legislative campaign. The primary goal of this campaign will be to reverse the downward trend of diminishing federal resources to support public breeding research and spur the development of locally adapted and publicly available varieties.

NSAC’s Seeds and Breeds legislative proposals will focus on key policy improvements, expanded funding streams, and new legislative proposals within the Research Title. Specifically we will be looking at policies that seek to increase support for conventional breeding research within USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), and also within the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Our policy recommendations will: improve transparency and coordination of plant and animal breeding research; increase federal funding for conventional, field-based breeding research; and ensure publicly funded varieties remain accessible to all interested farmers and researchers.

Aligning Risk Management, Conservation and Family Farming: Crop Insurance Reform

Farming is an inherently risky business. The threat of extreme weather, pests, variable costs for inputs, and wild fluctuations in market prices for farm products make agriculture a volatile business environment and can cause farm income to vary significantly from year to year. A healthy farm and food system therefore depends heavily on public policies that help farmers manage risk effectively.

NSAC, like many others in the farm sector, believes that a robust crop insurance program backed by the federal government is an important component of an effective farm safety net. However, we also believe that the current policy encourages consolidation, artificially inflates farmland values, and is not viable for the full range and diversity of American agriculture including organic farms, highly diversified farms, farms serving local and regional food markets, and beginning farmers, among others.

The federal crop insurance program we have today creates holes in the farm safety net by discouraging farmers from improving their risk management through the use of proven conservation and diversification methods. The federal crop insurance program also saddles the American public with a large annual subsidy bill without offering real program accountability or transparency.

At a cost of over $8 billion a year, federal crop insurance is the costliest program outside of the nutrition title in the farm bill, giving it an outsized role in shaping the farm bill and agricultural economy. The crop insurance program is also unique in that, unlike all other federal entitlement programs, it requires no means testing or limitation on benefits. Not only is this fiscally irresponsible, it also provides the largest producers with a consistent, publicly funded source of revenue that allows them to bid up land prices. This inflates land prices beyond the reach of many beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, encouraging further consolidation in our food production system.

As we gear up for the 2018 Farm Bill, NSAC will be mobilizing our members and farmers across the country to demand improvements to the federal crop insurance program that will make it more effective, efficient, and transparent. Our campaign will focus on four key pillars reform that will:

  • Expand access to serve all types of farmers based on their risk management needs.
  • Actively promote conservation by eliminating barriers to sustainable farming practices and rewarding practices that protect our land, water and health.
  • Reform the structure of the crop insurance program so that it no longer provides unlimited subsidies that fuel farm consolidation or unduly influences farmers’ planting decisions.
  • Improve the delivery of the crop insurance program to make it more transparent and efficient.

Closing

We have a long road ahead of us, but important hearings, discussions, and debates around the 2018 Farm Bill are already taking place in earnest. Like farm bills of the past, we expect that the 2018 bill will include some compromising, but also some significant disagreements and struggles.

In this series, we have highlighted some of the key areas of the farm bill that will get attention over the next 18 months. We covered dynamics related to food assistance programs, whether and how to reform the commodity subsidy programs and federal crop insurance program, how to improve agricultural conservation programs, and whether or not the many farm bill programs that support beginning farmers, regional food systems, organic agriculture, and rural economic development will be left “stranded” and without renewed funding.

No matter when and how these debates take shape, NSAC will be there to help shape policies that support small and midsized farms, protect the environment, promote rural economic opportunities, and ensure access to healthy food for everyone. Stay tuned for more action and updates on the 2018 Farm Bill as the debates unfold and NSAC’s campaigns are developed.

NOTE: This blog is re-posted  from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), of which CalCAN is a member. We work with NSAC staff and fellow member groups from around the country on issues related to the farm bill and the nexus of federal agricultural and climate change policy. CalCAN will continue this work in 2017 as we gear up for a new farm bill and keep up our on-going collective efforts to inform implementation of working lands conservation programs. More on this work found here.  For more on NSAC, click here. 

Filed Under: Climate & Ag Research, Farmer Resources, Federal Policy, Research Tagged With: Beginning Farmers, Conservation Programs, crop insurance, farm bill, local food systems, NSAC, seeds

The Top 6 Improvements with the New Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Insurance Policy

December 19, 2014 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

This blog is reposted from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Note that Whole -Farm Revenue Protection insurance from USDA’s Risk Management Agency is available on a limited basis in California.  Want to see Whole-Farm insurance in your area?  Call your RMA office today: 530-792-5870

Recently, the Risk Management Agency released the new Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) insurance policy. Farmers now have until late February or early March to sign up, depending on the county they farm in. The 2014 Farm Bill created the new option, aimed at diversified farms, including mixed grain and livestock operations, local food producers, organic farmers, and others for whom single commodity insurance protection is not a good option.

As farmers start to contemplate whether to sign up, we thought it would be a good idea to identify the top six reasons WFRP is better than its predecessor whole-farm policies, known as adjusted gross revenue (AGR and AGR-Lite).

1.  An 80 percent premium subsidy when a farmer grows at least three crops and chooses a coverage level of between 50-75 percent. RMA is leveling the playing field between WFRP’s premium subsidies and those provided to traditional single crop whole farm unit revenue policies.This means that diversified farms are eligible for the same level of subsidy as a farm that plants only wheat or only corn and soybeans.  This subsidy is well above the 59 percent available under the old AGR and AGR-Lite whole-farm policies. This could save a farmer thousands of dollars in premium costs.

2.  A premium discount for increased diversification up to 7 crops. In recognition of the fact diversification is a risk management tool, RMA has included a premium reduction for diversification.

3.  Coverage for market readiness activities, the incidental processing expenses necessary to make the crop ready for market. One of the many concerns cited by farmers as a reason for not utilizing AGR and AGR-Lite has been the lack of coverage for market readiness activities.By including these expenses in a farms allowable revenue and expenses, RMA is increasing the policy’s utility for farms that sell directly to the public.  The covered activities include washing, trimming, and packaging but not those that add value to the commodity such as canning or freezing

4.  Coverage for an expanding operation’s potentially increased revenue, even when the farm does not have a history of expanding revenue. Previously, if you wanted to insure a revenue level above your historic average revenue, i.e. expansion revenue, you had to have several years of history showing an expansion in revenue.  Given the growth in local and regional food systems, RMA has recognized that new farmers do not have this history, and that the old method actually discourages new farmers from expanding.  The new WFRP policy allows a farm to insure more than their historic average revenue if the farmer can show that the farm has expanded physically with the potential to produce at least 10 percent more revenue than its historic average revenue.

5.  Replant coverage for a crop lost early enough for replanting. In order to make the policy more user friendly and attractive to diversified farms, RMA has added replant coverage to help defray the costs of putting in another crop when there is an early season failure.  The replanting payment will cover the cost of replanting the damaged crop or crops but cannot exceed 20 percent of the farms expected revenue.  Additionally, the loss must be at least 20 percent or 20 acres of the crop.

6.  Availability in 45 states, an increase over AGR and AGR-Lite, which have only been available in 36 states combined. This expansion increases access to crop insurance for more farms, especially in the Mid-West where neither AGR nor AGR-Lite have been widely available before now.   This also increases the fairness of the federal crop insurance program by giving more farms access to the same subsidies already available to farms in AGR states and those monocropping only crops covered by individual commodity policies.  NSAC is continuing to work to have WFRP expanded to the five remaining states where it is not currently available, TX, OK, LA, MS, and AR, plus portions of CA where it is still not being offered.This reduction is on top of the increased premium subsidy a farm can receive under the new WFRP policy.

Honorable Mention: There are two aspects to WFRP that are not new, but are worth noting.

WFRP will continue to offer coverage for livestock, nursery, and greenhouse plants. The revenue generated from these sources cannot exceed 35 percent of the farms total revenue and the coverage for each, is limited to $1 million in revenue from those particular enterprises.

WFRP will also continue to allow farmers the option to insure individual crops under separate crop policies as long as that coverage is above the catastrophic (CAT) coverage level. This allows a farmer that may grow corn along with several other crops to insure their corn crop under a corn revenue policy and the rest of their farm under WFRP.

For More Information visit RMA’s WFRP website or NSAC’s Grassroots Guide.

Filed Under: Farmer Resources, Federal Policy Tagged With: crop insurance, diversified farms, farm bill, NSAC, organic farmers, USDA RMA, whole farm insurance

Crop Insurance Proposal to Lower Premiums for Good Stewardship

September 2, 2013 by Renata Brillinger Leave a Comment

Reposted from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
August 29th, 2013

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently soil moisture samplelaunched an online tool that shows extreme weather-related crop loss by state and county.  The risk of crop loss from these weather events, like droughts and floods, can be mitigated through sustainable soil management practices like cover crops, crop rotations, and conservation tillage.  NRDC is proposing that insurance companies work with USDA to create a pilot program to reduce Federal Crop Insurance Program (FCIP) premium rates for farmers who use these risk-reducing practices.

According to NRDC, “rather than incentivizing farmers to adopt risk-mitigating farming practices, FCIP premiums are set using a formula that ignores how important healthy, regenerative farming practices — like conservation tillage, cover cropping and improved irrigation scheduling — are to farmers’ risk management as they increasingly face the threats of drought, floods and other extreme weather events[…]  NRDC recommends that FCIP launch a pilot program that reduces premium rates for farmers who apply low-risk/high-reward farming methods to reduce the risk of crop loss.  Premium rate reductions offered to farmers in the pilot program would more than pay for themselves thanks to avoided indemnities created by risk-reducing farming practices[…]”

NRDC’s announcement follows a series of USDA actions regarding the benefits of planting cover crops.  USDA Secretary Vilsack recently spoke on the valuable role of cover crops as a climate change adaptation tool.  Simultaneously, USDA released new cover crop guidelines to facilitate farmers’ ability to plan cover crops and still qualify for crop insurance subsidies.  And USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program recently released results of a survey confirming that cover crops contribute to increased cash crop yields.

NSAC agrees with NRDC that reducing the crop insurance premium for farmers engaging in these soil-conserving practices should not be a substitute for requiring conservation compliance from all farmers who benefit from federal crop insurance subsidies.  But NRDC’s proposal could provide an incentive and reward to farmers who exceed a conservation compliance baseline.

Although the future of the farm bill remains uncertain, NSAC continues to work to ensure that crop insurance premium subsidies are linked to basic conservation compliance.  This linkage was included in the most recent Senate farm bill, but not in the House farm bill.

For additional information on NSAC’s 2013 farm bill crop insurance reform recommendations, click here.

Filed Under: Federal Policy, Impacts of Climate Change Tagged With: climate adaptation, conservation compliance, conservation tillage, cover crop, crop insurance, crop rotation, farm bill, soil management

USDA Secretary Highlights Cover Crop and Climate Change Solutions

June 13, 2013 by Renata Brillinger Leave a Comment

Reposted from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
June 6th, 2013

Yesterday, speaking at the National Press Club, USDA Secretary Vilsack addressed the present and future challenges in agriculture brought on by our changing climate – challenges “new and different than anything we’ve ever tackled.”  The Secretary recognized the unique regional challenges that farmers and ranchers are experiencing around the country – extreme precipitation in the Northeast, drought in the West and Southwest, and increasing temperatures across the board – and emphasized the need to adapt to these, and other, climate change effects.  The Secretary additionally recognized agriculture’s potential to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in particular by storing (or sequestering) carbon in soils.

In his speech, the Secretary announced three new measures that USDA will take to help farmers toward these goals: (1) Regional Climate Hubs, (2) NRCS Soil Carbon Management and Evaluation Tools, and (3) Cover Crop Guidelines.

Regional Climate Hubs

Through Regional Climate Hubs, USDA aims to help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners develop adaptation strategies by providing regionally-specific risk and vulnerability assessments.  These Hubs will likely be located in existing USDA service centers, but may also operate in collaboration with Land Grand and Public Universities, Extension offices, and Agricultural Experiment Stations to improve forecasting and develop and provide science-based risk management tools.

NRCS Soil Carbon Tools

This measure focuses on two new online tools relating to agriculture’s ability to sequester carbon in the soil.  The first tool is an online database that provides access to the results of NRCS’ Rapid Carbon Assessment – a soil survey containing over 144,000 samples at 6,000 locations across the country.  This tool is geared toward scientists and researchers looking to investigate regional variations in soil carbon, land use, and management and conservation practices.

The second tool – the Carbon Management and Evaluation Tool (or “COMET-Farm”) – provides an online platform for farmers to analyze the GHG footprint of their operations.  Using COMET-Farm, farmers can input information on their specific operation and management practices and then generate an analysis of the GHG emissions and carbon sequestration that could result by implementing various conservation practices.

Cover Crops

The third measure is the result of an inter-agency project among USDA’s NRCS, Risk Management Agency (RMA), and Farm Service Agency (FSA) to establish guidelines for terminating cover crops while retaining eligibility for RMA and FSA programs.  In addition to carbon sequestration, cover crops provide other benefits, such as preventing erosion and improving soil health, yet crop insurance and commodity payment programs have been structured in a way that discourage farmers from planting cover crops.  NRCS, RMA, and FSA – together with stakeholders, universities, and industry groups – developed a science-based guidance to provide consistency across USDA programs and assurance to farmers who want to plant cover crops and remain eligible for crop insurance and commodity program payments.

Under existing RMA and FSA rules, producers risk losing access to crop insurance and some commodity support programs if they fail to terminate planted cover crops by a certain date.  However, the dates and rules relating to termination have been inconsistent both within and across regions.  In the past, some FSA and RMA regional offices have periodically issued special provisions to modify termination dates.  The new USDA inter-agency guidance establishes cover crop kill dates across four zones.

A More Sustainable Agriculture

As NSAC has noted in our Agriculture and Climate Change Position Paper and in letters toCongress, not only do sustainable and organic agricultural systems offer the most resilience for agricultural production in the face of increasingly uncertain regional climate effects, but these practices can also mitigate GHGs.  Sustaining and expanding programs that support diversified sustainable and organic agriculture and additional conservation measures – including preventing erosion and wetland draining by re-linking conservation requirements to crop insurance subsidies – as well as investing in on-farm energy efficiency and appropriate renewable energy generation, will improve farmers’ and ranchers’ ability to focus on adaptation while providing mitigation benefits as well.

Filed Under: Featured - Sidebar, Federal Policy Tagged With: Adaptation, carbon sequestration, cover crops, crop insurance, effects of climate change, NRCS, USDA

Crop Insurance for a Changing Climate

January 30, 2013 by Jeanne Merrill Leave a Comment

Guest blog by Adam Kotin

After more than a year’s work crafting a new five-year Farm Bill, Congress decided to once again put off the hard decisions.

Instead, as part of the last-minute ‘fiscal cliff’ deal, it authorized a 9-month extension of the 2008 farm bill. This extension eschews reform and lacks vital funding for conservation, research, energy, specialty crop and organic programs.

Congress did, however, preserve piles of funding for a major aspect of the farmer ‘safety net’: subsidized crop insurance.

This past spring, as part of a cost-cutting farm bill that would have saved $23 billion over five years, the Senate voted to eliminate the longstanding direct payments program—a move that has been supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and most conservation-minded organizations for many years. The bill passed out of committee in the House of Representatives did the same, with its additional $12 billion in cuts coming largely at the expense of food stamps and conservation spending.

But House Speaker John Boehner (R – OH) didn’t let the bill go up for a vote, paving the way for the gutless farm bill extension.

Above all, the 2012 Farm Bill debacle revealed a confused and divided Congressional leadership. Many commentators, and indeed many of the politicians whose job it is to pass agricultural legislation, are left wondering, ‘What next?’

The short answer is: we don’t know. Whether or not legislators will be able to pull together a comprehensive new farm bill before the current extension expires is anyone’s guess. But given the current cost-cutting zeitgeist on Capitol Hill, it’s a fair bet to say that any new farm bill will significantly slash all of the major agricultural programs—all, that is, except perhaps crop insurance.

Despite tremendous political pressure, including from the White House itself, rural lawmakers have stood firm in their desires to not just preserve crop insurance but to expand it. Both the House and Senate Farm Bills would have increased overall spending on crop insurance, even going so far as to create a new insurance mechanism for expanded coverage in cases of revenue loss.

The federally-subsidized crop insurance program, begun as a temporary emergency support to Dust Bowl and Depression-era farmers, has effectively become ‘too big to fail’.

The federal government now pays about 62 cents of every dollar in crop insurance premiums, and many farmers say crop insurance is the program they depend upon the most. Following the most recent spates of extreme weather, some say insurance is what keeps them afloat. Farmers’ unions across the country have let it be known that crop insurance is a top priority for the future.

But as the 113th Congress starts from scratch in 2013, the full cost of a farmer safety net during the United States’ hottest year on record is becoming clear. The taxpayer bill for crop insurance indemnities is expected to top out at around $15.8 billion for the 2012 year, shattering the previous cost of $9.4 billion for 2011 losses.

It is therefore easy to see why farm-state lawmakers are increasingly anxious about crop insurance being a ‘juicy target’ for spending cuts. They point out that indemnities are at an all-time high because the program is so badly needed—after all, high indemnity costs mean farmers are actually relying on crop insurance when extreme weather strikes.

So in the renewed farm bill talks, two things should be heard screaming out for lawmakers’ attention. First, the need for sensible and forward-thinking agricultural spending reform; and second, the need to plan for and address the impacts of extreme weather on our farming systems.

Here’s the good news: when used in tandem with a prudent package of other programs, crop insurance itself might be used to both reduce farm vulnerability and gird our agricultural systems for the future climate.

Insurance mechanisms will almost assuredly play a major role in adapting current social and economic systems to the effects of climate change. It’s insurance companies, by and large, who set the price of risk. They’re also the ones who can encourage you to take preventative action, such as by lowering your premium for driving safely or installing a burglar alarm.

When insurance companies incorporate future climate change risks into their models, people respond to them, as well, by building further away from the rising sea or, say, increasing water use efficiencyin a drought-prone area.

Research in the most recent issue of Science suggests that the global property/casualty insurance industry is actually becoming a vanguard for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Insurers are supporting climate-aware zoning measures and other adaptation measures that build resilience and, ultimately, reduce weather-related losses.

The crop insurance industry might do much the same. A climate-adaptive federal crop insurance program would reward growers who acknowledge future climate risks and plan accordingly. It would extend and expand insurance support to farmers using sustainable practices that build strong, healthy soil and reduce water use when water is scarce. It would, as CalCAN and NSAC have argued, tie conservation compliance to crop insurance, ensuring that farms’ ecological systems are protected. A healthy farm ecosystem can serve as its own form of insurance, softening the effects of heavy floods, droughts, and winds.

At present, organic, sustainable,  small-scale farms and many specialty crop growers are largely excluded from government insurance support. Traditional insurance structures favor neither diversification nor small-scale production; the federal farmer ‘safety net’ benefits some farmers over others. The vast majority of farms receiving federal crop insurance subsidies are therefore large commodity producers, whose reliance on off-farm inputs and lack of diversification make them even more vulnerable when extreme weather hits.

Rather than proposing to use conservation funds to pay for disaster assistance, as the House did back in August, lawmakers should view our nation’s conservation, energy, specialty crop, and organic expenditures as investments in a more climate-resilient agricultural system.

Crop insurance is just one part of the huge farm bill apparatus, but extreme weather events and climate change impacts will continue to push it further to the fore. How crop insurance relates to other farm-level programs in the next farm bill could set our course on issues of climate adaptation for years down the road.

Filed Under: Farmer Resources, Federal Policy Tagged With: crop insurance, drought, farm bill, flood

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