September 1, 2010
www.gfb.org
Vol. 28 No. 35
CHAMBLISS HOSTS CROP INSURANCE LISTENING SESSION Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, said last week during a crop insurance listening session that ad hoc disaster payment programs are becoming harder to push through Congress, making it more important for growers to buy crop insurance. “Crop insurance is something that we historically in the Southeast have not purchased a lot of,” Chambliss said. “I can tell you that ad hoc disaster programs are getting harder and harder to come by. We have one likely to pass in September, but it might be the last one we ever pass.” The listening session, held Aug. 27 at the University of Georgia Tifton Campus Conference Center, featured speakers from various commodity groups, including Georgia Farm Bureau Peanut Committee Chairman Wes Shannon, who runs a diversified farm in Tift County. The session was attended by Bill Murphy, administrator of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), as well as Michael Moore, director of the RMA’s Valdosta Regional Office, and Jeanne Lindsey, a technician in the Valdosta RMA office. Moore noted that the planting deadline for peanuts would be moved back to June 5 for Georgia’s peanut-producing counties except Jefferson, Johnson, Laurens, Montgomery, Richmond, Treutlen, Washington and Wilkinson, which will remain at the current May 31 deadline. The late planting period in all Georgia counties will end on June 15. The reduction to the insurance guarantee for late planting will be one percent per day. Shannon was one of several growers who made comments. He thanked RMA for supporting protection for honeybee producers under the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees & Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) and for extending the peanut planting deadline. He also asked RMA to consider a cotton replant provision, a poultry repopulation provision and moving back the Feb. 28 deadline for purchasing crop insurance. “Cotton is the only major row crop that doesn’t have a replant provision available in the federal crop insurance program,” Shannon said. “Georgia is one of the nation’s largest cottonproducing states and it is vital to our farm gate. The replant provision should be implemented for cotton as it is for many other crops.” Moore responded that cotton organizations throughout the country are not in favor of it because it would increase premiums, which he said are already high in Texas and the Mississippi Delta. “From a fairness issue, Georgia premium rates are much lower than those areas,” Moore said. “I don’t know if we could ever do [a replant provision] in one part of the country and not cover another part of the country.”