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Crop insurance coverage continues to increase

Programs ICONAn ag economist says farmers have continued to increase average crop insurance levels.

Gary Schnitke with the University of Illinois tells Brownfield since 2002, farmers have increased their coverage levels by eight percent.  “Where we’ve really seen the large increases has been since 2006 when prices went up and there’s more of a fall I guess.”  He says, “If we have low yields or low prices—if you don’t have crop insurance you can suffer pretty large losses pretty quickly, and all of those factors came together to increase coverage levels.”  Schnitke says the highest coverage levels are purchased on corn, soybeans and wheat.

He says in the Midwest about 85 to 90 percent of the acres that are planted are insured.  “It’s pretty safe to say that if we did not have crop insurance, we would have more financial stress, particularly in recent years amongst those farms that had low yields, because we have low prices and now those farms that had lower yields would have suffered more.”

Schnitke says farmers say crop insurance is the most important risk management tool available to them.

AUDIO: Interview with Gary Schnitke 

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