Change, challenge and opportunity are the three words chosen by the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau (CIRB) for their annual meeting this year, being held in Bonita Springs, Florida and they seem pretty appropriate given the new political climate in Washington DC.

This will be my first time attending this event so I am looking forward to what crop insurance industry has to say about the new administration and the first steps toward a 2018 Farm Bill. Some of the experts we will be hearing from at the conference include American Farm Bureau’s Mary Kay Thatcher, University of Illinois economist Gary Schnitkey and former Farm Service Agency administrator Jonathan Coppess, and Jim Wiesemeyer of Informa Economics. We will also be getting an update on the Emerging Leaders Program just now in its second year. Stay tuned!