Commodity lobbyists: Protect crop insurance
By Jerry Hagstrom, The Hagstrom Report
CropInsurance-RFP-022023
| BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — Most of the commodity lobbyists appearing on a panel at the Crop Insurance Industry Annual Convention here Monday said that protecting crop insurance is a top priority in the farm bill, although each said other agricultural issues both inside and outside the farm are important too. Wayne Stoskopf of the National Corn Growers Association, Robbie Minnich of the National Cotton Council and Christy Seyfert of the American Soybean Association said protecting crop insurance is a top priority, but Minnich said it is important to talk about what “improvements” can be made in crop insurance. |
CropInsurance-RFP-022023
| While there have been proposals to include a permanent disaster program in the farm bill, Seyfert said soybean growers would not want it funded at the expense of crop insurance or the Title I programs. Seyfert added that soybean growers would like to see improvements to the Production Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage programs that many farmers say don’t provide any protection now because commodity prices and input costs have both risen. Stoskopf noted that disaster payments come late compared with crop insurance payments. Jamison Cruce of USA Rice said rice growers want improvements to the PLC program because “the price support mechanism is key for us.” |
| Rebeckah Adcock of the International Fresh Produce Association said that producers of specialty crops, a category that includes nuts as well as fruits and vegetables, had been hit by many disasters in the western states and would like “as much as possible to get off the ad hoc disaster assistance cycle.” But she admitted that figuring out what works better in crop insurance is difficult, even though specialty crops have made “a lot of progress since 2015.” |
| Rob Johansson, a former USDA chief economist who is now with the American Sugar Alliance, said that beet and cane growers want to rely on crop insurance but that with events like the freeze in 2018, “ad hoc disaster aid has been important for our industry.” Putting back on his USDA hat, Johansson said, it would be hard to find a way for crop insurance to address issues such as the trade war with China or the COVID-19 pandemic. “How would you rate the likelihood that China will launch another trade war?,” Johansson said to an industry audience that has often feared that ad hoc disaster programs make members of Congress wonder if crop insurance works. |
| Scott Graves of the American Association of Crop Insurers, who moderated the panel, said, “You will never totally eliminate ad hoc disaster aid. It is political.” Turning to other issues, the lobbyists said each of their industries is facing its own problems this year. Stoskopf said corn growers are concerned about Mexico’s plans to ban genetically modified corn imports and are concerned about the future of biotechnology in general. |
| Cruce said rice growers are concerned about subsidies to the rice industry in India. Seyfert said soybean growers believe foreign markets should be diversified and that trade promotion programs need more funding. Adcock noted that specialty crop growers have come up with 109 recommendations. Better treatment for the Adjusted Gross Income provisions would be helpful, she added. Cruce said rice growers need better protection for on-farm storage, noting that hurricanes had come after farmers had harvested rice, and there was no storage protection. Several of the lobbyists said their members are worried about bans on pesticides and herbicides. |
| Discussing the prospects for the farm bill, Stoskopf said, “You cannot count out a committed committee” because the members can get a bill done “against the odds.” Minnich said, “There are a lot of questions with the new House rules. We know what they are today, but don’t know how they will be implemented in six months.” Adcock said the situation between the House and the Senate “looks like gridlock,” but that dynamics behind the scenes such as the retirement of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and the motivation in the House to get the bill done, and the odds of getting a better bill if it is delayed will all play roles in the outcome. |
| Minnich said that if the House Republican leadership keeps to its promise for open rules so that “every amendment under the sun can be offered,” the result could be “detrimental amendments” on the agriculture appropriations bill “before we even get to a farm bill.” Adcock said, “specialty crops can be an ambassador to the nutrition side” because Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables and specialty crop production is not just rural. “We want urban ag included in farm bill programs. That allows us to have a better communication with urban and ex-urban members,” she said. Cruce and Johansson also noted that rice processing facilities and sugar refineries are in cities. Stoskopf said corn growers have formed coalitions with conservation and forestry groups. Minnich suggested that the lobbyists should tell Congress that increasing the baseline spending for agriculture can create more “certainty” and avoid ad hoc disaster payments. |
