Conferences
Challenges and Opportunities for Whole Farm Revenue Protection in New York State
Jennifer Ifft
Summary
The new Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) crop insurance product has had very low uptake in New York state thus far. WFRP was developed in part to expand the Federal farm safety net to diversified growers, making crop insurance more suited towards their unique characteristics. As a part of our RMA Targeted States Crop Insurance Education Project, we have developed a web-based premium quoter for WFRP and conducted several targeted outreach activities, including presentations at extension events and focus groups. Additional activities will include developing several examples of how WRFP could work for NY farmers and case studies on farms that have used WFRP. As a part of our presentation we will (1) introduce our experiences in developing a web tool; (2) discuss types of farms in New York that WFRP could work well for, and (3) discuss challenges for WFRP uptake that we have discovered in the course of our education efforts, especially for beginning farmers. There are some specific issues with product design, such as growth rates not adequately allowing for the rapid growth experienced by some beginning farmers. For the beginning fruit and vegetable farmers we have worked with, risk management is often achieved through marketing (CSA, contracts, etc.) as well as diversification and investing in soil fertility. The remaining risk management need is for low probability catastrophic events, such as a hail storm. From this perspective, a discussion on the general suitability of crop insurance products may be merited.
Details
| Conference | 2017 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference |
| Presentation Type | 30-Minute Concurrent |