IARN It’s been a busy year for the agency that administers federal crop insurance.
Farmers in Iowa and throughout the country faced many challenges in 2020 when it came to protecting their crops. The COVID-19 pandemic and multiple natural disasters, including the August 10th derecho, made the biggest impacts. Martin Barbre is administrator of the US Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency. He says RMA tried to remain flexible in the odd year.
“2020 federal crop insurance covered a liability of more than $113 billion for producers across the country,” said Barbre. “We’ve paid out over $5.8 billion in indemnities to those producers. Obviously, we’ve had a little bit of a pandemic going on this year and we’ve been able to authorize a lot of crop insurance flexibilities. We’ve extended deadlines, we’ve waived certain requirements, we’ve deferred interest for two months in a couple of situations.”