Crop Insurance

[riders2010]

Is there any other private way to insure for too wet acres. People in our area want out of the useless saskatchewn crop insurance but with the likely hood of not seeding much if any acres any other options? Premium for coverage and poor attitude and ability of the some of the employees there in our area, just not worth the money. For many people that seeded last year and the fields wiped out there is a near zero or zero to your yield average that stays with you ten years, that's bizarre. Surely somebody there must have enough brains to figure out that when a wide spread disaster occurs and declared, your yields should not be at zero for ten years.

[bucket]

The insurance scheme is quite funny. Ten year average.

Agristabilty - 5 year average and you kick out the best and worst years.

Our so called farm lobby group that think nurses are the answer ought to be asking for seeded acres to have the same formula. Five year average and kick out the worst year. That way 2010 wouldn't count against you.

But apas got good reviews so they will do nothing as usual until shit hits the fan or some of the directors start realizing how bad it is this year. Morons.

[riders2010]

Who were they trying to appeal to with the nurses? With the average age of farmers at what, over 60, so half or more can't even get an erection, talk about poor marketing. lol!!! They just pissed off half of their targetted crowd.

But seriously you are right we do not have enough grass roots farmers that know what is needed because they are living through the challenges involved in the process.

You would think the idea is to have an insurance that covers what you normally grow not what you've bombed out on. As far as agri- instability why the hell is your high year excluded, you've proven that that is what you can produce.

[jensend]

what should crop insurance be based on other than actuarial data? if it's insurance that's what is relevant. it's already highly subsidized.

[hedgehog]

whats this about nurses?
sounds interesting!

[riders2010]

The idea of insurance is to provide you adequate compensation for weather loss. 10 year history combining and including 0 years obviously won't do that. 10 year history that does not account for cost of production will not do that. 10 year history that does not account for increases in variety quality, technology etc. does not do that. For example a new canola comes out this year that yields 100 bu acre but costs twice as much inputs, your average is based on the old shit canolas only yielding 50 bushels. I know that is extreme but you get the idea.

We have all these crop insurance people and agristability people working at providing products that because of past history disasters being used for coverage, are ineffective at best to do the job they are supposed to. Furthermore agristability is rewarding farmers that need assistance least of all and gonna not help at all those that need it most, totally bananas.

So what is magical about 10 years, maybe it should be 7 maybe 15 maybe 2. I suppose the nerd designing the program looked down at his hands and started counting his fingers maybe that is how we got to 10 years.

Maybe the nerd designing the Agri instability program looked down at his hands and realized one was busy in his pants which left only 5 fingers left, maybe that's why it is 5.

Get rid of agri instability, either get a fixed coverage level or change the thinking completely to weather based coverage. That way no need for all this paperwork and nerds calculating all this bullshit for ineffective programs. The money saved on salaries, office space, severance, retirement packages, dental, etc. would astound many if they knew the total.

[mcfarms]

Riders

You may look at eweatherrisk it's expensive in my opinion but it is an interesting concept using derivatives.

However it will only help you against new events not the fact the soil is saturated and not alot of moisture is going to cause issues.

[jensend]

the idea of insurance is to pool risk. if you want to be compensated the premiums will reflect the risk. the current crop insurance programs are already subsidized over 60% of actual cost (risk). maybe the risk/reward ratio is not what you wish it was. think about it - someone paying $40,000 in premiums has gotten a $60,000 subsidy on that one expense.

[riders2010]

The facts are this if you have 2, 3 or 4 bad years recent, agri-instability becomes useless. Crop insurance becomes useless for the next 9 to 10 years after and even during the next 9 to 10 years if you have anything else go wrong you are down to insuring 30 to 40% of what should be realistic.

As far as the subsidy issue you go forward with that train of thought if you like but as far as I am concerned they can wipe their ass with that so called subsidy. What we put into the country in terms of a secure food supply jobs and trade, that amount of so called subsidy is a farce. If they don't want to give that so called subsidy then for farmers to exist and continue farming through the tough years our products have to be priced way above the market otherwise, go get it from other countries and let all the food stop being produced here, all the jobs go and the land go to grass.

And under that scenerio when and if our product is not on the world market watch what price you will pay then, and are you going to go to china with a gun to get your wheat, beef, etc when there isn't even enough to supply themselves? That point that never gets as much attention as it should.

[riders2010]

Mcfarms those are good points to consider.

I forgot to mention that if the subsidy for crop insurance premium was lifted who the hell would take it? Look at the pathetic amount of acres all things considered that are signed up now for that shit program.

[jensend]

my point is that if you consider the true total premium to coverage it gives you a better estimate of the risk of grainfarming. if you want more subsidies campaign away but the disservice the crop insurance premium subsidy does is it makes most farmers underestimate the risk involved in crop production.

[jensend]

and you're absolutely correct that a couple or three bad years will screw up your agristability and crop insurance coverage but that just reinforces my contention that the business is very risky. the way grainfarming has changed in the last forty years is to download all the risk onto the producer.

[SASKFARMER3]

Lets do like the West and south got in the dry years. Zero production was forgiven if im not mistaken.

[jensend]

won't change the actual history.

[riders2010]

I certainly agree with you jensend the risk has been downloaded, but the programs do not respond to the downloading. We are not being compensated for that downloading which means someone up the ladder is getting a cheaper ride at our expense so is this a subsidy or just a relevelling of the playing field.

Saskfarmer3 I believe that is correct about the drought areas not having their zeros. But where do you cut off 5 bushels 8 bushels etc. Maybe there shouldn't be such an easy declaration of disaster. I know even this year some areas were complaining how wet and it turned out they were worried that the 40 bushel canola was testing 12. Trying combining 10 bushels when you cannot even test it or put the swather in the field. But then again how would you draw lines geographically.

I still think the weather based scenerio could be workable. Surely there would be a way to determine the soil moisture starting out and then if that starts you at a disaster then the program kicks in.