Farmers need crop insurance that's adequate, understandable and affordable

Congress is writing the newest version of the farm bill. The legislation, passed approximately every five years, provides a policy and budget roadmap for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It will include everything from food aid programs to crop insurance for farmers.

By our lights, crop insurance is the key component of any farm bill. A good crop insurance program assures that Americans will eat today - and every other day.

Occasionally, critics in Congress and elsewhere surface with their complaints about crop insurance, calling it a "give-away" to farmers. They say it is "subsidized" and that farmers instead should "pay their own way."

If they were talking about life insurance or nearly any other type of insurance, they would be right. There is no need to subsidize those types of insurance.

But crop insurance is different. It's not a matter of if it will be needed, but when. Farmers face a nearly unlimited array of potential perils, including diseases, pests, storms, drought, low prices and crop failure. Any of these can put a farmer out of business, sometimes in a matter of minutes or hours.

By offering crop insurance, the federal government is assuring farmers that there will be a tomorrow. Mind you, farmers will not get rich from insurance - nor should they - but they will be able to survive.

As is often the case with anything involving the federal government, crop insurance is overwhelmingly complicated. That, in our opinion, is one of the program's shortfalls. Many people are disinclined to buy something they don't understand, and farmers are no different.

We are not actuaries, but we know the need for adequate and affordable crop insurance exists for all farmers. Whether they farm 20 acres or 20,000 acres, growers need to know they can make it through a worst-case scenario.

That should be the goal of Congress as it considers a new farm bill: providing adequate, understandable and affordable crop insurance to every farmer.

There are different types of crop insurance that are appropriate for different types of operations, but any insurance is better than none.

USDA and Congress often find themselves paying out money to farmers through crop insurance, the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program and ad hoc disaster legislation. The disaster payments are supposed to plug any coverage gaps left by crop insurance.

Sometimes, however, the possibility of disaster payments creates a disincentive to buying crop insurance.

Two members of the Oregon House delegation, Reps. Andrea Salinas and Earl Blumenauer, note that many small-scale farmers skip crop insurance. They say agents who sell crop insurance tend to concentrate on selling to large-scale operations because their commissions are higher. To promote the sales of crop insurance to smaller-acreage farmers, they have proposed legislation that would pay sales agents more.

While that seems logical, above all else small farmers also need crop insurance that is adequate, understandable and affordable.

Large or small, farmers need that in crop insurance.