Harvest Prices for Crop Insurance Plunge: What Does It Mean for Farmers?

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:08:04 GMT

The Risk Management Agency just released official harvest prices for federal crop insurance, and it’s not good news for farmers.

Harvest price is based on the average price during October. This year, those numbers are well below 2023 and the base prices set in February:

Corn — $4.16 harvest price versus $4.66 base price, a 50¢ drop
Soybeans — $10.03 harvest price versus $11.55 base price, a sharp $1.52 drop
Grain sorghum — $4.17 harvest price versus $4.67 base price, down 50¢
Confectionary sunflowers — down $1.50
Oil sunflowers — dropped $1.20

The drop comes as no surprise to Tony Jesina, senior vice president of insurance, Farm Credit Services of America.

“We’ve seen the trend in play for quite a while, but in October, we did get a little bit of a bump. It could have been a lot worse,” he says. “It’s still bad enough when you think about the price of corn being down 11% from spring and beans roughly 13%. The trend has not been our friend, that’s for sure.”

Lower harvest price levels will trigger some insurance payouts for the 2024 crop, according to Randy Martinson, Martinson Ag Risk Management in Fargo, N.D.

“There’s likely going to be revenue losses in some areas on soybeans. Corn, it’s just going to depend on if you had a lot of rain and drowned out corn,” he says.

With these prices, margins will be even tighter in 2025 and, for some, maybe in the red.

Jesina says farmers need to closely manage their cost of production and safety net.

“You look at the most common policy in place and that policy will not cover your cost of production for 2025,” he says.

Most producers will need to increase their coverage under their underlying policy or add a supplement.

“A lot of producers will look at the Supplemental Coverage Option known, SCO, or the Enhanced Coverage Option, ECO. When you layer ECO and SCO on top of your underlying policy, for most producers that will be enough coverage to provide a safety net that gets close or can actually go above covering their cost of production for 2025,” he explains.

Crop insurance is not an expense to scrimp on, and Jesina recommends paying for higher coverage to help guarantee revenue. In addition, he says crop insurance products are subsidized, and the ECO subsidy went up for the 2025 crop year.

Your Next Read: A Possible Recession Still Hangs Over the Ag Economy, But Positive Shifts Are Starting to Surface

WinField United Expands Answer Plot Program to Research Farm In North Dakota

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 15:16:58 GMT

WinField United’s Answer Plot program is expanding in two ways: first, with a larger dedicated research farm covering 162 acres in North Dakota, and second, with a focus on hard red spring and winter wheat, spring and winter canola, field peas, sunflowers, and other diversified field crops.

As explained by Ryan Moeller, seed product manager, this first of its kind dedicated research farm allows for the WinField United team to use crop rotations at the site necessary for the diversity of its research. The Wilton, North Dakota site consolidates and elevates the opportunities for diversified field crop research which had been previously scattered and in smaller scale.

“It’s tricky to get all of these crops in the rotation,” he says. “Whereas the Answer Plots before have been exclusively corn and soybeans and located on smaller sites, we needed a bigger space.”

He says another advantage is they can use the site as a draw for bringing in people for educational agronomy events. This summer had the initial field day for the site, and Moeller said attendees were impressed about the investment and data behind the Croplan brand.

“Really, I want ag retailers to know this is their farm. This is also the farmer’s farm. We are committed to diverse field crops. There are a lot of companies, it’s corn/beans/corn/beans. Our corn/beans are important and we believe diverse field crops are just as important,” Moeller says. “It shows our commitment to them and their diverse field crops.”

Currently, one crew lead and two additional team members are establishing the first field trials.

As Moeller says, the goal of the Innovation Farm is to collect agronomic data to help bring improved product and agronomic recommendations to help growers.

Some of the first research trials include:

Large-scale genetic and performance testing and screening capabilities for multiple crops
Herbicide efficacy trials
Nitrogen trials
Fungicide response
Shatter testing on commercial and pre-commercial canola products–a first for Croplan.

“We want this site to be the best applied agronomic research center and be known as leaders in bringing forward the kind of insights we are researching,” Moeller says.

Sunflower

Harvest Prices for Crop Insurance Plunge: What Does It Mean for Farmers?

WinField United Expands Answer Plot Program to Research Farm In North Dakota