Crop Insurance the Focus of House Subcommittee Hearing

(WASHINGTON, DC) Members of a House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management spent Thursday morning hearing how farm policy helps farmers in adverse conditions. Brandon Willis of Utah State spoke about the need to reduce “ad-hoc” disaster assistance and challenged the members to be vigilant in protecting crop insurance. Willis, a former administrator of USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), explained that ad-hoc programs are inefficient while improvements to the federal crop insurance program represent a better solution for farmers and taxpayers alike. He also challenged Congress to be vigilant against attacks from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the White House. In their recent budget proposal to Congress, OMB called for a reduction of premium subsidies from 62 to 48 percent, lower adjusted gross income targets for crop insurance premium assistance (to $500,000) and ending exemptions for peanuts, cotton, and livestock. In 2018, 20 million more acres were covered under crop insurance over the previous year and the program came in $2 billion under federal budget projections.