As leaders in crop insurance flocked to the annual meeting of the Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau, so did members of the agriculture media. Chuck thought it would be interesting to gather their perspective on some of the important issues discussed to help chart the course for the future.
Sara Wyant, AgriPulse, shared her takeaways and a few things that stuck out to her as she sat and listened during the event. “As we all know from talking to farmers across the country, crop insurance is a very important risk management tool. And farmers have come to rely on that instead of ad hoc disaster payments. That has been a good thing both from a tax payers standpoint as well as the farmers. The last Farm Bill has just been under our belts a year and certainly increased the investment in crop insurance and it also increased the opportunity of critics of federal spending to go after crop insurance. I think the fact that crop insurance will continue to have a bull’s eye on it’s back is evident in these discussions.”
The weather was another hot issue during the event and it was mentioned that the weather might just be as complicated as crop insurance. Jerry Hagstrom, The Hagstrom Report, gave his perspective on the weather, “I came away with the conclusion that at the present time we are in a period of warming weather. It’s just a matter of which kind of language you are using to talk about it. I am reminded that somebody said to me recently that a lot of farmers seem to be climate change deniers. But they wouldn’t be climate change deniers if people were not asking them to make changes. It’s the changes they don’t want.”
Listen to Chuck’s complete interview with the duo here: Interview with Sara Wyant & Jerry Hagstrom
2015 Crop Insurance & Reinsurance Bureau Annual Meeting Photo Album
