With unexpected weather comes the reminder that crop insurance is vital!
National Crop Insurance Service is continuing its mission, sharing firsthand stories from farmers and ranchers who depend on the safety net of insurance, as well as the agent behind each policy.
According to Jamie Wade, who farms near Murray, Kentucky, the tool is imperative to her family’s operation.
“The weather. It’s either too wet, or it’s too dry, or it’s too hot, or it’s too cold. Everything influences our crop. We can only do our best. We can put it out, plant it, fertilize it, keep it clean, but the rest is up to God. And because of that, crop insurance is imperative to our farming operation. It’s as imperative as a tractor is,” she explains.
That sentiment was echoed by Brooks Underwood, an agent located in Hazel, Kentucky.
“I can remember an incident in 2012, particularly. I had an individual that I had worked with in the ag retail prior, who I had a really good relationship with, who had never purchased crop insurance at all! The grower called me, actually, one night and said I just don’t have a very good feeling about what’s getting ready to happen. And so, the next day, I went out there, and we wrote a wind and hail policy, and in three days, he had a hailstorm that came through... he lost 100% of his crop, and he was a smaller grower. And that’s probably one of the only times I’ve delivered an indemnity check that a grower put their arms around me and said, ‘Thanks!’ You know, and it truly was a lifesaver for him,” Underwood states.”
