Grassley, Hoeven Work to Strengthen Crop Insurance

Grassley, Hoeven Work to Strengthen Crop Insurance

Ag Committee Republicans are pushing for more "farm" in the Farm Bill

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, joined Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in introducing legislation to strengthen crop insurance and make higher levels of coverage more affordable for producers.

"A strong crop insurance program is integral to the success of America's farming operations. Yet, when disaster strikes, many farmers find themselves without adequate coverage," Grassley said. "Our bill will allow existing farm safety nets to function as intended, ensuring farmers have access to the coverage they need, while alleviating the need for costly, future ad-hoc assistance."

"Crop insurance is an essential piece of the farm safety net, providing farmers with their most important risk management tool as they work to continue providing Americans with the highest quality, lowest cost food supply in the world. I have heard from producers across North Dakota about the need to make this important program more affordable. As such, we're working to not only defend crop insurance, but improve it. That's how we're going to keep the farm in the farm bill," Hoeven said.

"Time and time again, it's become painfully obvious that our farmers need improved access to high coverage crop insurance plans that adequately cover all the challenges in a growing season," Ernst said. "To protect our ag community, I'm fighting to improve federal crop insurance and ensure that dollars in the Farm Bill actually go towards safeguarding our food and fields, not pie-in-the-sky climate change policies."

The Federal Agriculture Risk Management Enhancement and Resilience (FARMER) Act would:

• Increase premium support for higher levels of crop insurance coverage, which will enhance affordability and reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster assistance.
• Improve the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) by increasing premium support and expanding the coverage level, which would provide producers an added level of protection.
• Direct the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to conduct a study to improve the effectiveness of SCO in large counties.
• Not require producers to choose between purchasing enhanced crop insurance coverage or participating in Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, giving them flexibility to make decisions that work best for their operations.

Unlike Senate Democrats' proposal, the Grassley-backed FARMER Actwould not require American producers to choose between enhanced crop insurance coverage and commodity support programs.

Grassley, Hoeven and Ernst are joined by Agriculture Committee Ranking Member John Boozman (R-Ark.) andSens. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).

The FARMER Act has garnered support from Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Iowa Soybean Association and Iowa Corn Growers Association. National endorsers include the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association and the National Corn Growers Association.

View bill text HERE.

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