Friday Crop Report on a Thursday!

[farming101]

I've asked before furrow but I'll ask again could you explain to me how there isn't any insurance for that?
Manitoba crop insurance offered coverage on my quarter next door if i'd grown hard red spring wheat of $42,115 ($280/acre) on the 150 acres cropable for a premium of $1026. That was based on 80% coverage with a price of $6.67 bu with 52.6bu being the average yield for the area with me having no history.

So assuming things don't improve here and this crop remains out over winter what happens? I assume crop insurance tells you in the spring that it's a total write off and cuts you a cheque or they might tell you to harvest it and if you did so and only got 20bu/acre off it you'd get compensated for the missing 32.6 bu plus you'd have some crappy low quality wheat to sell.

I can see it's a bad situation - harvest costs are way higher than usual. No cashflow to pay bills now, no field work done in preparation for next year or NH3 put down, possibly a crop to harvest next spring or work down before you can seed. Possible damage to land through ruts or machinery damage from working in poor conditions. $280/acre if you got the cheque tomorrow maybe doesn't meet your cost of production, or it maybe meets it but leaves no profit but how can you say there is no insurance for what I pictured?
I really want to know what I'm missing.

If you have a crop on one field it's fairly easy to figure out.
If you have 10 or 20 fields of a crop, then you get out the calculator.
Insurance is per crop not per field. Once you have gone over your coverage amount per crop(factoring in yield, quality and price) then no payment
Doesn't matter if you are going to have a loss or not. You didn't or couldn't buy enough insurance.
And it doesn't matter if that's your grocery money out under the snow. Actually if it's under the snow then you wait till next spring to see how it all shakes out

[Guest]

I've asked before furrow but I'll ask again could you explain to me how there isn't any insurance for that?
Manitoba crop insurance offered coverage on my quarter next door if i'd grown hard red spring wheat of $42,115 ($280/acre) on the 150 acres cropable for a premium of $1026. That was based on 80% coverage with a price of $6.67 bu with 52.6bu being the average yield for the area with me having no history.

So assuming things don't improve here and this crop remains out over winter what happens? I assume crop insurance tells you in the spring that it's a total write off and cuts you a cheque or they might tell you to harvest it and if you did so and only got 20bu/acre off it you'd get compensated for the missing 32.6 bu plus you'd have some crappy low quality wheat to sell.

I can see it's a bad situation - harvest costs are way higher than usual. No cashflow to pay bills now, no field work done in preparation for next year or NH3 put down, possibly a crop to harvest next spring or work down before you can seed. Possible damage to land through ruts or machinery damage from working in poor conditions. $280/acre if you got the cheque tomorrow maybe doesn't meet your cost of production, or it maybe meets it but leaves no profit but how can you say there is no insurance for what I pictured?
I really want to know what I'm missing.

Where they get you is on the quality factor
They can tell you its #1 and if you have to sell it for feed you may not get extra
Having said that they have always been more than fair with us , kind of a two way street
The biggest problem is , and probably what furrow is referring to , is if you have 2000 ac wheat and 1000 is good , it may cancel the other 1000 ac out
What we need is individual coverage for each field , but that will never happen because there is too many dishonest system playing farmers out there
That sounds like a lot better coverage than sask ? Will look tonight
Can anyone comment on area averages and sask price for wheat ?

[jazz]

Crop insurance counts on the dilution of the coverage by the farmers own actions. Most farmers are big enough and have land across a decent area. While big snow storms might hit all of it, lots of local events wont. In additon, they know farmers will make some progress on their crops before getting hit with an event. So those two fields of top stuff you got off before the snow will just drag your coverage down on the stuff that sits all winter.

Same goes with establishment. Say you get rough start on one crop, poor germ, beetles. They will usually give you the option to reseed or let it go to harvest. Not too many guys will reseed mid June. So that field only gets half yield but the others 10 miles away got a starting shower. Well they just average all that out. Not only does it lower your chances for coverage, lowers your average yield experience.

[bigzee]

It’s basically like this
1000 ac farm seeds all durum coverage is 33 bu ac 500 ac gets hailed out, other 500 goes 66.
Guess what that’s sweet tweet from crap insurance. All my durum could have yielded 66, sorry there’s still a loss, and it doesn’t help to bring up my average. At the end I’m still short half my bu, maybe I shouldn’t pay premiums on those 500 hailed out acres. The whole thing is a joke from top to bottom. Cut their wages in half because of poor performance and see how far it gets them.
The 500 that didn’t get hail makes up for the other with double the yield. Real BIG joke that is.
It’s unfortunate they took spot loss hail from us, guess they thought that was like getting the cream cheque. Now the line companies can now charge us what they want knowing we are their only choice.
Sorry for the rant, but it’s been L O N G year, and it’s not over yet.

[grassfarmer]

Ok I see what you're all saying re it being your total acres per crop that's insured versus by individual parcel. But given that it's based on average area crops, or a producer's historic average production I can see the other side too. If your average yield is 50bu and you seed 1000 acres. Half yields 100bu and half yields nothing you've still harvested an average crop and you wouldn't get a payout. If, as seems likely this year, yields were below average anyway, say 40bu instead of 50bu on the half of the crop you harvested that would bring you down to a 20bu yield across all your acres wouldn't it?
Would you be happier if you were able to insure for 100% of average crop yields instead of a max of 80%?

Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of insurance, or crop insurance either as the house always wins. My only experience of being in a claim position resulted in me having to take them to tribunal to get awarded part of the compensation I was due (again the house always wins). The programs are certainly not designed to cover or remove all risk but they are likely better than nothing or producers wouldn't pay the premiums.

[SASKFARMER]

Here is insurance Reality in Sask.

HRS you grow 2000 acres as an example.

it is yielding 74 on average so far.

Long term average yield for your farm is 40 because they figure from 1960 forward, so your 12 and 24 back then are part of the number. Also, last years high 70 is not counted till 2020. See the wonders of math.

Now if you take 70% of 40 that's 28.

Harvest half your 1000 you have 74000 bush and zero in the field or 74000 over 2000 acres.

The guarantee is 56000 your over so burn the rest. We will start next week swathing outside three rounds and take so that a fireguard can be made next spring.

Canola is the same Its a shit show.

[bucket]

Agristability is based on 3 years out of 5 ...Crop insurance is based on about what a 40 year average when you do the math...area averages work into the formula somehow as well...Its nearly impossible to increase your coverage on a BPA basis...

Not one politician I talked to this election understood the problems in agriculture....not one....nor do they care other than to say they are from a farm......

[SASKFARMER]

I can tell you this for sure Very few will collect crap insurance this year even if half the crop is left in the fields.

And AG STab hahahahahah

ANd private insurance someone, please forward a printout of your check I bet it's not close to what you thought you were guaranteed.

[bucket]

I can tell you this for sure Very few will collect crap insurance this year even if half the crop is left in the fields.

And AG STab hahahahahah

ANd private insurance someone, please forward a printout of your check I bet it's not close to what you thought you were guaranteed.

The private insurance owners are currently in meetings with the government to bail them out ...and they will get it because they can say they were helping farmers...

ViterraSWP hacks are at the government doorstep for sure. ....all going cap in hand to the government...and they will get something because I am sure they still have the photos...

[farmaholic]

And AG STab hahahahahah.

70% of 70% equals 49% coverage of your O-limp-dick average with the high and low year removed from the calculation.
And they control the commodity value, I guess you can always challenge the Calulaion of Benefits if you want to prove to them you sold commodities below their values.

Yup, you will probably never collect and even if you are in a claim position.....your financial position is going to remain really f'en bad because they are only going to shore you up to 49% of your 5 year Olympic average.

Can you make it on 49% of your income?

[bucket]

70% of 70% equals 49% coverage of your O-limp-dick average with the high and low year removed from the calculation.
And they control the commodity value, I guess you can always challenge the Calulaion of Benefits if you want to prove to them you sold commodities below their values.

Yup, you will probably never collect and even if you are in a claim position.....your financial position is going to remain really f'en bad because they are only going to shore you up to 49% of your 5 year Olympic average.

Can you make it on 49% of your income?

Apparently the average taxpayers only takes home 50% of their gross....why would you expect more than the people writing up these program formulas...

Sadly most people don't understand economics when farmers spend 90 percent of their income...and still have the profit in the fields ...if there was any to begin with...

But I guess I should be thankful for the months of September and most of October off...


Sarcasm alert.....

[bucket]

If you look at north America farms as a whole can anyone hazard a guess as to why there has been a crude inventory build for the last couple weeks....I know one doomsayer can't and figures a crude inventory build is an economic slowdown. ...

[grassfarmer]

Long term average yield for your farm is 40 because they figure from 1960 forward

Really? they don't base it on your last 5 or 7 years yields? that seems odd. We get a flyer through the mail every year that shows crop yield by crop/variety/RM which seems to reflect what MASC bases their insurance coverage on - ie the 52.6bu average yield I quoted in my example compares to the RM average of 50bu shown in the flier for 2015 year (the only one I had to hand).

My pet peeve with crop insurance is around winter feed for animals. The Ag department has spent untold sums through extension over the years encouraging ranchers to use extensive feeding methods - bale grazing, corn grazing, swath grazing etc as they are cheaper, involve less fossil fuel use and keep the nutrients in the field. Yet crop insurance penalizes you if you practice any of these through the wildlife program. If we get crop damage (elk around here) we get compensated for that upon inspection of loss - but only up until the time that a corn crop would normally be harvested for silage. So if we choose to corn graze as they advise us to do we lose the right to compensation for wildlife damage because we didn't harvest it at the time for silage.
That's my biggest risk right now - we choose to silage our corn because of uncompensated elk damage if we corn grazed. This year it looks like we will be unable to silage it due to conditions so will have to graze it instead. When the annual migration of @300 elk past my place happens soon what do we do? we're not allowed to shoot them but I can't afford for them to eat my winter feed supply.

[bigzee]

Oh 60 bu an acre nexera also helps for agstab !

Combining it damp and with slow movement chances are it heats next April !

Haul er to the bush and then voila yous got a decrease in inventory !

Should work for a payment !

No need to thank me !

Or use the neighbours bins that didn’t use.
I’m sure a grain bag over the hill won’t be seen.
It’s all been done.

[bigzee]

Fill the Quonset and lock the door.