Think of everything humanity has accomplished over the past 12,000 years. Art. Science. Literature. Taco pizza. The world owes all these achievements to one special person, without whom civilization could never have existed: the clever one who first figured out what happens when you plant seeds.
Agriculture still rules the world. Anything else could go away in an instant. We’d figure out a way to get along without it. But without a steady supply of corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle, things would turn grim real quick.
You, a farmer, are doing the most fundamental job in all of history. Your trade and your livelihood both deserve the fullest protection against disease, insects, adverse weather, unpredictable markets, and other age-old enemies of agriculture. Farm insurance protects what matters most: you.
How Much Good Does Farm Insurance Do For Farmers?
In this article, crop insurance is criticized because farmers in “only” 10 states reap almost two-thirds of all payments. It then proceeds to list them, and lo and behold – they are 10 of our country’s largest agricultural producers.
Iowa (4th place), South Dakota (5th place) and Nebraska (8th place) are all on that list, of course. If you add up all the crop insurance payments these states received between 2001 and 2022, it equals $27.2 billion dollars. On average, farm insurance does about $1.3 billion worth of good to farmers throughout the tri-state area each year.
Critiques of farm insurance often miss its purpose entirely. It’s not like winning the lottery because 80% of your corn crop drowned in a flood. A payout is merely intended to indemnify the claimant for a serious detriment to their all-important livelihood. It helps them stay operational until they can regain profitability. Ultimately, that’s the greatest good farm insurance can do for a farmer: it keeps them on their farm.
Farm Insurance Covers More Than Just Crops
It’s easy to visualize a farming catastrophe as something that destroys crops. Multi peril crop insurance (MPCI) exists solely to cover losses from low yields and lost crops caused by natural events. More than 90 percent of farmers who buy crop insurance have it.
MPCI is just one of several types of crop insurance available. For example, the federal government also supports and regulates revenue-based policies, which guarantee a certain level of revenue in the event that production is low quality, low in quantity, or low in market value.
Various other insurance policies exist to safeguard everything else farmers and ranchers hold dear. Workers’ compensation insurance protects their farmhands. Commercial vehicle insurance protects their trucks. Farm dwelling insurance protects where their children lay their heads at night. There are even policies which protect farmers’ sheds.
The Hoffman Agency Protects Farmers
Earlier, we said that agriculture is the one thing people can’t get by without. But that’s not strictly true. If you work in agriculture, then there’s one other very special thing you can’t do without: insurance.
If you would like to minimize the risk that goes hand in hand with the world’s actual oldest profession, then we welcome you to contact The Hoffman Agency today. We have served farmers throughout Iowa for all their insurance needs for over 60 years, and we are standing by to help you protect what matters most.