Patent Issued for Insurance product associated with risk management on the application of crop inputs (USPTO 11144995): FMH Ag Risk Insurance Company

2021 OCT 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors McComb, Shawn James (Algonquin, IL, US), Ochs, Yanhong (Waterloo, IA, US), filed on October 21, 2004, was published online on October 12, 2021.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11144995 is FMH Ag Risk Insurance Company (West Des Moines, Iowa, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “The identity, timing and amount of application of crop inputs to a field may be determined by one or more of the following factors: maximizing yield of a crop, reducing the overall cost of a crop inputs, varying the rate of application of crop inputs to reduce the cost of crop inputs or to improve yield, complying with governmental regulations, following environmental best practices or voluntary environmental stewardship practices, applying scientific or agronomic models, complying with contractual constraints imposed by purchaser or potential purchasers of a crop, and complying with crop insurance requirements or crop insurance endorsements. For example, a scientific or computer model may be applied to estimate yield performance of a particular crop based on soil test results, environmental factors, the historic application of crop inputs, and historic yield of a previous crop to determine the timing and amount of application of the crop inputs. Crop inputs may include nutrients, such as fertilizer, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and trace elements and minerals. Other crop inputs include pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, chemicals, plant hormones, water, irrigation, and other treatments for vegetation or soil.

“To minimize the risks of insufficient nutrients, excessive weeds, or insect attacks on crop yields, growers may tend to over-apply fertilizer, herbicides, insecticides, respectively, to crops in an effort to maintain consistently high yields. However, the over-application of crop inputs may raise production costs and cause pollution of surface and ground water aquifers.

“The Risk Management Agency, which is associated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, may approve one or more endorsements (e.g., a Nutrient Best Management Practices (BMP) Endorsement) for crop insurance products based on preferential growing practices. Regulators outside of the U.S. may offer crop insurance products that are based on preferential growing practices. Although most growers are honest and operate with integrity, such endorsements may be vulnerable to fraudulent activities or negligence of the grower’s personnel. Using traditional in-person monitoring and inspection may be difficult, costly or impractical because of the geographic scope of arable land. Accordingly, there is need for improved process for risk management on the application of crop inputs to facilitate pragmatic new crop insurance products and/or to facilitate growing crops with particular traits.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “An insurance product comprises a crop risk insurance policy component that insures against risk of loss for at least drought. An endorsement assembly is associated with the crop risk insurance policy component. The endorsement assembly comprises a grower compliance requirement, a right of payment, and ancillary terms and conditions. The grower compliance requirement requires a grower to comply with a qualified crop input plan for a particular crop in a field. The right of payment is contingent upon a first yield per unit land area of the particular in the field less than second yield per unit land area of a geographic area by more than a threshold amount. The geographic area covers a greater area than the field and is representative of at least one of the soil characteristics and the climate associated with the field. The right of payment is contingent upon compliance of the grower with the ancillary terms and conditions.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for managing a crop of a grower, the method comprising: determining a crop input plan by a planning module of a data processing system, the crop input plan comprising a grower compliance requirement for a crop risk insurance policy requiring a grower to comply with a qualified crop input plan for a particular crop in the field, the crop input plan defining application of nitrogen consistent with a preferential rate and temporal time window; measuring a first yield per land unit area of the particular crop in a field by a sensor of a harvester or a combine, wherein the harvester or the combine is operable to harvest the particular crop and comprises a path of crop flow, wherein the sensor comprises a moveable member mounted to the harvester or the combine in the path of crop flow, wherein the moveable member is operable to be displaced by a flow of the particular crop in the path of crop flow, wherein an amount of displacement of the moveable member corresponds to the first yield of the particular crop; estimating, by an estimator of the data processing system, a second yield per land unit area of the particular crop in a geographic area, the geographic area covering a greater area than the field and representative of soil characteristics and climate associated with the field; detecting a moisture level and a nitrogen level of soil in the field by one or more sensing stations deployed in the field, the sensing stations storing detected sensor data of the levels in data storage until communicated by wireless transmission to at least one of the data processing system and work vehicle electronics of the harvester or the combine after interrogation or polling of the sensing stations; the data processing system determining whether the measured first yield per unit land area of the particular crop in the field is less than the second yield per unit land area, where a right of payment by an insurer is contingent upon the first yield per land unit area of the particular crop in the field being less than the second yield per land unit area by more than a threshold amount and compliance by the grower with the crop risk insurance policy; and alerting the grower and the insurer by the data processing system if the detected nitrogen level or moisture level in the field falls below a minimum reference level that complies with the crop risk insurance policy, where the data processing system comprises an electronic data processor coupled to a data bus.

“2. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold amount is approximately five percent.

“3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the geographic area comprises one or more of the following: a country, a state, a county, a province, a canton, a region, a weather growing zone, a rainfall zone, a climate zone, and a soil parameter zone.

“4. The method according to claim 1 wherein the sensor comprises at least one of a mass sensor, a weight sensor, flow sensor, a moisture sensor, a piezoelectric transducer, a grain flow sensor, a grain moisture sensor, a ground speed sensor, a header position switch, an impact force sensor, a plate displacement sensor, a volume measurement device, a load cell system, a radiometric system, and a capacitance sensor.

“5. The method according to claim 1 wherein the measuring comprises detecting, via the sensor, the first yield per unit land area at one of the harvester and a combine; and transmitting the first yield per unit land area to a data processing system via an electromagnetic signal.

“6. The method according to claim 1 wherein the second yield per unit land area excludes the yields associated with compliant fields within the geographic area that follow the crop input plan.

“7. The method according to claim 1 wherein the second yield per land unit excludes the yields associated with noncompliant fields within the geographic area that do not follow the crop input plan.

“8. The method according to claim 1 wherein the measured first yield per unit land area of the particular crop comprises the measured yield of a check strip, the check strip comprising a region treated in accordance with a best management practices program.

“9. The method according to claim 1 further comprising storing moisture level and nitrogen level data by a respective one of the sensing stations in each of a plurality of different zones in the field, wherein each zone is based on at least one of soil properties and previously grown crops and is associated with a respective test strip in accordance with the crop insurance policy.

“10. The method according to claim 9 wherein the zones are based on a crop history for the zone, a crop input history for the zone, a historic nutrient exposure of the zone, and a nutrient mobility rating associated with the zone, and a hydraulic mobility rating associated with the zone, and an irrigated zone versus a non-irrigated zone.

“11. The method according to claim 1 further comprising: storing the detected moisture level and the nitrogen level until communicated by an electromagnetic signal to at least one of a wireless communications device of the combine or the harvester, or of the data processing system capable of communicating over a communications network.

“12. The method according to claim 1 further comprising: allotting a maximum time or a time window under a contract of the crop insurance policy for the grower to correct the nitrogen level that is below the minimum reference level by application of nitrogen, fertilizer or another crop input.

“13. The method according to claim 1 further comprising: allotting a maximum time or a time window under a contract of the crop insurance policy for the grower to correct the moisture level that is below the minimum reference level by application of water or another additive.

“14. The method according to claim 1 further comprising: determining whether a field is neglected by a grower with a noncompliance detector because the detected nitrogen level or moisture level in the field falls below the minimum reference level.

“15. The method according to claim 1 further comprising: a communications interface of the data processing system transmitting an indicator indicative of a difference between the first yield and the second yield if the difference is more than the threshold amount.

“16. The method according to claim 1 where the alerting comprises alerting the grower of a prescription for application of a crop input within an allotted time.

“17. The method according to claim 1 wherein the crop input plan is defined to conserve an amount of fertilizer, such as the nitrogen, applied without materially reducing a yield of the crop.”

For additional information on this patent, see: McComb, Shawn James. Insurance product associated with risk management on the application of crop inputs. U.S. Patent Number 11144995, filed October 21, 2004, and published online on October 12, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11144995.PN.&OS=PN/11144995RS=PN/11144995

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