Daily Archives: January 26, 2012

February Follies — the Budget and Agriculture

Agriculture is a unique industry in so many ways. One particular way—it is perhaps the only area of the federal budget to have shrunk in the past 10 years, yielding cuts even as it was coming in under budget. Funding for farm policy over the last five years (’07-’11) averaged $12.9 billion per year. This…

2011 Indemnity Payments Already Surpass Historic Record, Still Climbing

With claims still streaming in — only an estimated 81 percent of expected claims have been finalized — crop insurance companies have already paid out a record $9.1 billion in indemnity payments to America’s farmers in 2011. This has already surpassed the former record of $8.67 billion in indemnities paid in 2008, according to USDA’s…