Spreading Crop Losses Around

• Published date: 01 July 1965
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1965.tb02915.x
• Date: 01 July 1965

300 The American fournal of Economics and Sociology

Spreading Crop Losses Around

THIS YEAR will see more farmer's expense dollars protected from loss by

Federal Crop Insurance than ever before. FCIC Manager John N. Luft

reports that $470 million of insurance is in force on some 13 million acres.

Some 420,000 individual crops in 1096 counties through the nation are

protected by Federal Crop Insurance against production-cost loss from

weather, insects, disease and other unavoidable causes.

"This $470 million of protection is the highest in the 25-year history of

FCIC,"

Mr. Luft says. "We are insuring 57,000 more crops on 3.5 mil-

lion more acres than last year. We hope within the next 5 years to in-

crease our crop production investment protection to over a billion dollars.

This will be a big step in stabilizing the rural economy and will give the

current Rural Areas Development programs a more solid foundation to

grow on."

"Because today's farmer is operating on a decreasing margin of profit,"

Mr. Luft explains, "yet must spend more actual cash to produce his crops,

it is increasingly important for him to protect his working capital. This

working capital can be the profits of the last 3 or 4 years, or it may be

borrowed money which must be repaid. When crops fail, this money is

lost forever unless the crop is insured.

"When areawide crop failure happens, this loss of money, and the buy-

ing power it represents, can badly cripple the economy of communities,

counties and even states. Two or three years of bad crops can ever create

ghost towns. Federal Crop Insurance was created to help not only farmers

but, by protecting farmers, to keep more money fiowing steadily into the

business economy of rural America and through it to the entire nation.

"As Federal Crop Insurance expands by its legislative limit of 100

counties and 3 new crops a year, we hope to broaden and strengthen our

contribution to the well-being of agriculture and the nation."

VSDA,

Washington, D. C.