Welcome to The Dirt on Organic Farming, a podcast from OATS, the Organic Agronomy Training Service. This season, we are answering all those burning questions we know you have about crop insurance for organic farmers. Yes, we know it's a podcast about crop insurance, but we're going to keep these episodes short, lively, and accessible. Heck, you might even enjoy listening. I'm Nate Powell Palm. And I'm Mallory Krieger. And we're the hosts of the Dirt on Organic Farming.
In this episode, how will my innovative farming practices affect my ability to get crop insurance? So, we've talked about some of the tools organic farmers to get the most out of their crop insurance policies, written agreements, hail and wind policies, and whole In this episode and the next episode, we're going to look more closely at some of the hurdles organic farmers face with crop insurance.
And we're also going to hear from farmers and farm organizations that are advocating for changes to crop insurance to make it more suited to the needs of organic operations. So in this episode, we're going to take a look at the degree to which crop insurance can cover innovative practices. Something we talked about a lot last season is that organics is a very knowledge-based system, and farmers are always looking for new ways to increase yields while also improving soil health.
But crop insurance has rules about what practices are permitted that might exclude some of the systems organic farmers are using. I think one of the most exciting things about organics is the drive to find new ways to improve outcomes on your farm. Nate, do you have any personal experience with practices that would make you ineligible for crop insurance?
Personally, I don't, but I, as an organic inspector and as a colleague of organic farmers, have seen some really neat practices out there that don't fall neatly into the boxes checked by RMA. So in this episode, I wanted to start by hearing from a farmer about the obstacle he is facing with getting a crop insurance policy. And then we'll follow that with a conversation with RMA, about how they approach organic agriculture and innovative practices. But first, here's Brent.
I'm Brent Schlenker. I farm on a family farm in Central Iowa. We farm near Grinnell, Iowa. It's about 50 miles east of Des Moines, and it's an organic grain farm. And we grow corn and soybeans organically. We're certified through Oregon Tilt. And I've been doing a lot of work experimenting with organic systems that utilize, what I would call, no-till equipment and no-till systems. Now, I won't call myself a no-till farmer, but I do use no-till equipment and no-till methods.
So as an organic farmer, I really feel that it's difficult. I really feel it's important to change systems, so that we're better managing our soil, and better conserving soil, and controlling soil erosion, that type of thing. So. So Brent has almost made it his mission to come up with no-till organic systems for his crops, which I'm going to say is no easy task. And with the systems he's developed, he is able to get crop insurance on his soybeans, but not on his corn.
He described the methods he uses for his no-till soybeans. As far as the organic soybean cropping system goes, so far it's worked pretty well. We normally go out with an LP flamer in the fall after harvest, and flame after harvest to kill weed seeds out in the field after harvest. And then we go in with a great plains no-till drill, and we no-till cereal rye in the fall at two bushels to the acre.
Then in the spring, I'll go in with a no-till John Deere planter spaced on 30 inches, and use a ZRX dawn roller crimper mounted on the planter. And once the rise headed out in the spring, you can go in, and roll crimp and plant soybeans. And I do use an accra no-till cultivator when needed to cultivate between the soybean rows. And that works well, and we've been able to get crop insurance for that. So I do appreciate the work that RMA has done in that regard.
Wow, okay. So Brent really knows his stuff. Yeah. Wait till he describes his almost no-till corn operation. In corn production, what I've wanted to do, and I've been experimenting with this, is go in and use the Great Plains no-till drill on seven and a half inch spacings, and no-till 4010 field peas in the spring, and then go in and no-till corn. You can, the interesting thing about field peas is you can no-till...
So essentially, what Brent is doing is pairing the field pea with a short stature corn that grows slower. With this crop pairing, he can get into the field to roll the peas for a mulch, allowing him to avoid tillage, but still maintain good weed control for his corn. And it's just a system that I am really excited about. However, I can't get crop insurance for a system like that.
And so I'm at the point where I ask myself, well, do I spend all this money that I'm spending on something that, that I can't get crop insurance for? And it's a real question mark for me, but at the same time, it's a system I'm excited about. It's a system that did a tremendous job of controlling weeds. It did a great job of controlling soil erosion.
Obviously the first crop of field peas, they died down, and obviously build your soil, build your biology in your soil, so there's so many things that's beneficial. And I told you, you know, the ironic thing as a no-till, as an organic farmer , I had a plow, I had a disc, I had a harrow, I had a rotary hoe. I had all those tillage tools and we got rid of them. We sold them and said, even as an organic farmer, I'm not going to, I don't want to use those tillage
tools. And the ironic thing is, as an organic farmer, I'm going to have to go out probably and use that field cultivator in the spring, borrow a harrow from the neighbor, and I'm going to have to field cultivate, harrow a couple times, cultivate a couple times, do all those things that cause soil erosion, soil degradation, and simply because I can't get crop insurance. So this is the decision that some organic farmers face.
Do they implement these sort of novel systems that are working for their operations but may make it difficult to get crop insurance? Or do they do what they have to do to get crop insurance? Brent feels strongly about organic farmers working to reduce that tillage. I just find it all kind of ironic. And the unfortunate reality is, in organic farming, there's a huge blind spot. The fact of the matter is there is soil erosion on organic farms. And it is a problem. And the longer we deny it,
the worse it gets in my opinion. So, I'm excited about utilizing no-till principles, utilizing no-till equipment. However, I need to have organic crop insurance to do it. And I just really believe that there is great potential, but we just have to create the system for farmers to exploit that potential. And another frustration for Brent is that he feels like he's getting mixed messages from different government agencies.
We have the NRCS and we have the RMA within our government, those are the two government organizations. And the RMA is saying, you can't do that. You can't no-till. And NRCS is saying, what are you doing running that field cultivator across this hillside? You know, you're tilling you're going to cause erosion. And what do you tell the NRCS? Well, that's the only thing I can do to get crop insurance is cause soil erosion. You're between a rock and a hard place.
And then you have the banker saying, well, yeah, you have to have crop insurance. There's no way that this particular loan is going to go through unless you have crop insurance. So you're between a rock, between the NRCS, and the RMA, and the banker, and the only choice you have is tillage. At that point, I look at it and I just shake my head. I'm saying, you know, what can we do? Why is it the way it is? Brent is not alone. This is a common criticism of the system.
NRCS encourages farmers to incorporate as many soil conservation practices as possible, but those practices can also sometimes make you ineligible for crop insurance as defined by RMA. Brent also brings up an important point that the banks are part of this equation too. If you're not insured, it is much more difficult to secure loans. Yeah, it is great to see farmers thinking about these things.
I am so stoked to see folks like Brent ask the right questions, and really push to improve opportunities for farmers to both maintain sustainable businesses while maximizing the ecological outcomes on their farms. I'm sharing with you because I want there to be, the end goal is just create a better system, and a better environment for farmers to work within. You know, that's my goal and if I can share some of this with you, I'm glad I could do that. .
After hearing from Brent, I wanted to get RMA's perspective on how they're working to make crop insurance better for organic farmers. And I got to speak with both Sarah Kliethermes and Anna Parker from RMA. My name is Sarah Kliethermes, and I work for the Risk Management Agency in the policy administration branch. I'm from Central Missouri and I have worked in the organic area of crop insurance for 15 years. I am Anna Parker. I am a risk management specialist for the USDA Risk Management Agency.
I work in product management, loss adjustment standards branch. Based out of Kansas City, but live and farm in North Central Montana. I've been with RMA, focusing on organic within crop insurance, since 2010. I asked Sarah and Anna to provide a brief overview of RMAs role in crop insurance. USDA RMA serves as both a regulator and a reinsurer.
So the private market ,or private insurance companies, approved insurance providers, we call them AIPs, are the ones who actually sell and service your crop insurance policy. But RMA writes the rules, the regulation, the policy documents, and also subsidizes part of the farmer's portion of the premium. And Anna broke the process down a bit further. So if we take it from RMA, to the approved insurance providers, to your insurance agent. RMA will develop the policy terms, the rates and the prices.
The companies, the AIPs, sell and service those policies. And they employ both the crop insurance agent and the crop insurance loss adjuster. Those agents and loss adjuster is who the farmer works with on a like year to year basis, to both understand your coverage, to sign up for that coverage, and then if there's a loss, the loss adjuster would come out, measure the loss, adjust it, and then the company would pay the loss.
So the whole crop insurance process is sort of this back and forth between RMA and the AIPs. Exactly. So then we dove into crop insurance for organic farmers. And Anna pointed out that crop insurance has come a long way over the last 10 years in servicing organic farmers. So just for a little context, in 2013, just 10 crop years ago, there were only about 5,400 policies nationwide, and that covered just under 700,000 acres.
Last crop year, 2022, we insured over 11,100 policies, which covered nearly 2 million acres. So we've seen the program grow alongside, you know, consumer demand for organic products, and farmers out there transitioning and moving to certified organic farming practices.
You know, something I think is interesting is that part of the idea behind organic and sustainable practices is to ensure that the crops in the soil are healthy and less susceptible to many of the issues that have plagued farms over history like pests and disease and fertility problems. It seems to me like RMA would want to incentivize sustainable practices as much as possible, almost as an insurance policy against farmers needing to file claims.
You know, Mallory, I feel like you could just be getting on stage right now and having a call and response with a big old group of farmers saying, organic is good crop insurance, and they would be calling back, Amen sister. And so Sarah spoke to some RMA programs that are designed to encourage different types of sustainable practices. There are a few resources that you can go to to find more about these programs.
On the USDA website farmers.gov, if you go under the conservation tab, there is a climate smart agriculture and forestry initiative. For a deeper dive into crop insurance, RMA has also a conservation page on the RMA website. And we have a few programs that are pretty exciting. There is one on post application, it's a post application coverage endorsement. And what that does is it's a program on split application of nitrogen.
So this is a program for farmers that apply anhydrous, two times per year instead of just one large application. With that split application, they're really looking into gaining, the farmers are gaining efficiencies and reducing cost by supporting that practice. So then the crop insurance program is made according to accordingly for that. And another item that we're pretty excited about is cover crops. We've taken a few steps to support cover crops
in crop insurance. And in 2021, we had the pandemic cover crop program, and that provided premium support for producers with crop insurance that maintained cover crops systems during the pandemic. And prior to that we updated our policy, and this is an overarching change, we updated the crop policy for producers to hay graze or chop cover crops at any time, and still receive a hundred percent of the preventive planning payment. Lastly, I want to mention an irrigation efficiency program.
And this is an alternative irrigation method for rice program. And what it does is, it recognizes that agriculture producers can save input costs while conserving water when they use it's an AWD and a furrow irrigation practice on their rice farms. One thing I do want to note is that the post application coverage endorsement, or PACE, is not currently available for organic producers, but it is aimed at supporting conventional farmers in taking steps into
sustainable agriculture. So something I was curious about is, I know farmers struggle with cover crops, because they see the NRCS cover crop termination guidelines chart as set in stone dates that they have to terminate their cover crops by. So I asked Sarah and Anna to explain a bit about the termination guidelines and whether there are ways to deviate from those dates.
So these guidelines, they provide a pre-approved, latest end date to terminate a cover crop from a water availability standpoint for USDA programs. So the dates that you see in the map, they vary from region to region from East to West United States. And that is all based on water availability data.
And these guidelines, they're for an additional level of comfort for producers that may be unfamiliar with cover crops, but want to know up front that if they follow these guidelines, their crop is insured, and their cover crop management decisions can be considered a good farming
practice. However, for those folks who are coming up with pro with a system that really works on their farm, and they have extensive experience in cover crops, there is always an opportunity to get a deviation from the guidelines. And really there's three ways that a producer can know that their cover crop practice, their cover crop management
decision is a GFP. So one, they can follow these generalized zonal guidance here in the guidelines, or they can utilize published materials from ag experts. So if they have published material that's applicable for their area, then that can be provided to their agent, and given as support for a GFP determination, a Good Farming Practice determination. So lastly, let's say the first two options don't work for a producer, and it doesn't cover the specific cover crop management system they're
using. They can request an exception to the guidelines, and receive some additional ag expert support in writing in accordance with the Good Farming Practice handbook. So there are definitely other options. So it sounds like RMA has incorporated flexibility when it comes to the systems farmers are using, as long as they can prove that it is a good farming practice.
The good farming practice concept is definitely not a precisely defined thing, but following good farming practices means that you're doing your due diligence in taking care of the crop, and also following your organic system plan. Claims can be denied if it is determined you did not follow good farming practices or in other words, you abandoned the crop during the growing season.
I'm wondering if you brought up Brent's case where he can't get crop insurance for what he believes is a good farming practice. I did talk to Sarah and Anna about this and they brought up what I thought was a really good point. At the end of the day, RMA is an insurer, and that means that despite wanting to support innovative practices, they can't insure every individual experiment. It's really hard to insure an experiment, whether it's conventional
or organic. You know, it's that safety net to make sure that you have the cashflow to get a crop in next year, even if everything fails this year. It's kind of more of the hard truth. Like I know it's innovative, and I think it's really exciting, and that's how farms last, is by innovating. You know, I am talking to you from my family farm. We started here in 1929, which for Montana is pretty old, and you know, it was a potato farm. It's been a dairy farm. It's been an alfalfa farm.
Now we're raising barley, and have a certified organic greenhouse, like farms have to change. And innovation is important, but sometimes we can't always underwrite every cool experiment. Well, and that's why in the cover crops you have to have supporting written material from an ag expert to help you get that deviation from the
guidelines. So that we're not, you know, putting some risk out there, and then there's a huge loss in because there was a cover crop that wasn't grown correctly and maintained. We know we need to find this balance out there, because organic producers, and a lot of conventional producers are pushing the boat forward in, you know, sustainable farming practices, and, you know, working together to move agriculture forward into the, you know, into the next century. So we have to all move together.
I can see RMAs point. As an insurer, they have to put some parameters around what they can cover. Yeah. And Sarah recognizes there is room to improve crop insurance for organics, and had some suggestions for what farmers can do to help advance organic crop insurance. So a lot of what I hear is some of the publications on organic practices are few and far between, their data is slim, and some of those publications by universities and other ag experts can be outdated.
So I think one of the best things a farmer can do, is they can work with their ag advisor, and they can work with universities, they can work with people who are studying organic systems to create more publications that can be used as a Good Farming Practice resource and an agriculture expert resource. So then more of those cutting edge practices that farmers are using can be recognized, and then that can be also supported through crop insurance.
And RMA is an active partner in making crop insurance work better for organic farmers. Yeah, RMA is always seeking input, working with producer groups, working within the crop insurance industry to improve the products that are available. And a lot of these improvements come through data collection.
So my best advice to an organic producer is keep on doing what you're doing, and share that information, so we can collect this data, and the program can change and improve based on the data that we've collected. So first takeaway, work with your agent. Talk to your agent. Second, share your data. This has been the dirt on Organic Farming, a podcast by the Organic Agronomy Training Service.
OATS provides training to agronomists, advisors and crop consultants so that farmers will have better access to reliable science-based advice for their unique farm operation. Special thanks in this episode goes to Brent Schlenker, Sarah Kliethermes, and Anna Parker. This episode was produced by Michaela Elias. For more information, go to www.organicagronomy.org. OATS is a programmatically independent consortium that is fiscally sponsored by the Organic Trade Association.
OATS is supported in part with funding from OTAs membership companies. Season two of the Dirt on Organic Farming is made possible by a funding partnership with USDA Risk Management Agency under award number RMA22CPT0012393. I'm Mallory Krieger. And I'm Nate Powell Palm. Till next time, thanks for listening.