Last week Governor Jerry Brown declared California is in a drought. A drought simply stated is a shortage of precipitation, whether it comes from rain or snow. There just simply isn’t any moisture in our lands. Problems that can stem from a drought can become catastrophic. Withered crops, high fire dangers, water shortages and livestock dying are just a few of the effects that a drought has on our land. Unemployment is another effect that a drought will bring. The loss of crops means no employment. In 2009, about 10,000 people lost their job due to the drought.
According to Brown, who was in San Francisco last week, “The drought accentuates and further displays the conflicts between north and south and between urban and rural parts of the state. So, as governor, I’ll be doing my part to bring people together and working through this.”
During this dry season, the rest of us need to be diligent as well. Conserve as much water as we can, including washing dishes all at once, don’t light fires when you’re camping and use only propane stoves. Right now, California is in danger of becoming a matchbox just waiting for the match to strike.
According to 58 year old Kevin Kester, “I am a fifth-generation cattle rancher, and it has never been this bad ever in my lifetime — and from my family’s history, it’s never been anywhere close to this bad ever.” The last drought that was comparable to the one we’re in now, according to his family’s history was in the 1890’s.
Contact us today for a quote for your agribusiness.
On Monday, December 30, 2014 in a small farming community just outside of Salinas, an unusual discovery was made. A crop circle appeared on a small farm in Chualar.
Take a look:
Debra Flanager, who is a braille transcriber from New Jersey said that the dots that were placed in the middle of the circle translate to:
At Scurich Insurance Services in Watsonville, we cater to the agriculture business at every level of production and service. If you run one machine or a hundred, we will be committed to being your premiere insurance agency. Our purpose is to provide the best value and service available, while maintaining the highest ethical standards with our clients, carriers, and the public. Some of our agricultural lines include:
Agribusiness
Hog Confinement
Grain Elevators
Feed Mills
Livestock Feed Lots
Custom Harvesting
Even if your business isn’t agriculture based, we can still help you with your commercial insurance needs. Contact us online, or give us a call at 1-800-320-3666.
Original content provided by Transformer Marketing
Critics of the U.S. crop insurance program called for cuts to it and other agribusiness subsidies as Congress revamps farm policy.
At a rally on Capitol Hill, Wisconsin Representatives Tom Petri, a Republican, and Ron Kind, a Democrat, called for lawmakers to re-examine U.S. farm spending for the next five years and revamp the nation’s crop insurance program.
“We’re asking these crop insurance companies to put a little bit of their skin in the game too, so it’s not all on the taxpayer back,” Kind told reporters at the event.
Under the insurance program, the U.S. taxpayer subsidizes the majority of premiums paid by farmers, covers much of the administrative costs tallied by insurers to run the program, and guarantees that all losses are covered, according to a series of articles published by Bloomberg News this week.
Crop insurance covered $117 billion worth of product in 2012, including almost all the corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat produced in the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture spent about $14 billion last year on the program as the worst drought in a half century devastated plantings.
Supporters of crop insurance are stepping up their lobbying to preserve the program’s funding levels.
‘Political Process’
Richard Gibson, founder of American Agrisurance Inc. and a business consultant, told agents of NAU Country Insurance Co. in an e-mail this week obtained by Bloomberg News to lobby their lawmakers. He said crop insurance had become a target as Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a 2014 budget or a stopgap measure to keep the federal government operating.
“I’ve been around this business since it started, and the bottom line to it is, it’s been a political process since day one,” Gibson said in a phone interview yesterday.
At today’s rally, Kind said the existing crop insurance program guarantees companies a 14 percent profit, forces the adoption of little risk and covers administrative and operating expenses.
“There’s not a business in the world that wouldn’t sign up for that offer, so why are we doing that in crop insurance program of the farm bill?” he said.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers planned to meet yesterday in Washington to re-examine U.S. farm spending for the next five years. Wisconsin Representatives Tom Petri, a Republican, and Ron Kind, a Democrat, planned to use a Capitol Hill rally to call for an “end to handouts,” Petri’s office said in a statement.
Under the insurance program, the U.S. taxpayer subsidizes the majority of premiums paid by farmers, covers much of the administrative costs tallied by insurers to run the program, and guarantees that all losses are covered, according to a series of articles published by Bloomberg News this week.
Crop insurance covered $117 billion worth of product in 2012, including almost all the corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat produced in the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture spent about $14 billion last year on the program as the worst drought in a half century devastated plantings.
Supporters of crop insurance are stepping up their lobbying to preserve the program’s funding levels.
Richard Gibson, founder of American Agrisurance Inc. and a business consultant, told agents of NAU Country Insurance Co. in an e-mail this week to lobby their lawmakers. He said crop insurance had become a target as Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a 2014 budget or a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating.
“I’ve been around this business since it started, and the bottom line to it is, it’s been a political process since day one,” Gibson said in a phone interview yesterday.
‘Circle the Wagons’
Kind, the Wisconsin Democrat, said he isn’t surprised by the lobbying push. “It’s a very powerful, well-organized lobby out here to try to circle the wagons,” he said in a phone interview.
Petri and Kind co-sponsored legislation in May to cap the total value of crop insurance subsidies to $40,000 per individual annually, and eliminate support for those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $250,000. That measure, which the lawmakers said would save $11 billion over a decade, failed in the House.
“What we’re recommending is not unreasonable,” he said. “This is an area that we can reform” to find cost-savings in the farm legislation.
‘Fiscal Responsibility’
In e-mails to agents, Gibson criticized Bloomberg News stories that examined the program’s costs and vulnerability to fraud. Crop insurers and the USDA said subsidized insurance helps stabilize food prices and protects farmers from the vagaries of weather.
“The program is working, so why does Bloomberg put on the negative ad campaign to destroy it?” Gibson said. He told agents in a Sept. 9 e-mail “to stay engaged with our political representatives” and warned that detractors of the program “will be out in force when and if the farm bill ever reached the conference level.”
Adjustments to the farm bill are still possible as both houses of Congress reconcile separate measures in a conference to shape the final law.
New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who also proposed curtailing payments, said re-examining the program was a “smart way” to reduce the deficit.
“Limiting federal spending on crop insurance is a common- sense fix to some of the government’s most egregious spending and waste,” she said in a statement.
Petition Delivery
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which is organizing today’s event, plans to deliver tens of thousands of petitions urging members of Congress to overhaul the program.
“We’re using taxpayer money to pay big companies to buy insurance that they would buy themselves,” Dan Smith, tax and budget advocate for Washington-based U.S. PIRG, said in a phone interview.
President Barack Obama sought this year to cut almost $12 billion from the program in the next decade while Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has called subsidized insurance “crony capitalism” that needs to be reduced in an effort to curtail federal spending.
Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Services, the main lobby for crop insurers, defended spending levels in a statement that said the Bloomberg series showed an “obvious bias” against the program.
Crop insurance “forces farmers to manage risk before, not after it happens, which saves taxpayers money,” Zacharias said.
Gibson said he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press on behalf of NAU Country, a unit of QBE Insurance Group Ltd. of Sydney, Australia and was expressing his own views.
The House legislation is H.R. 2642; Senate is S.954.
Agribusiness Insurance protects not only your farm in Phillipsburg, KS, but it also provides peace of mind for your shareholders and other individuals or entities that may hold interest in your company. Insurance for your agriculture business protects not just you, but also anyone else who might have an interest in your farming business.
Having a crucial piece of machinery break down or the sudden onset of inclement weather can affect your business. If you have commercial insurance coverage with Scurich Insurance in Watsonville, you can reduce the chances of disaster having a negative impact on your cash flow.
Some types of coverage that can help your agribusiness include the following:
• Should an interruption occur in your cash flow, Income Loss coverage could help you recover some of your revenue.
• Some farm owners give tours of their farm or give hay rides to supplement their income. Agritainment liability will protect you in the event of an injured guest. Custom equipment and tractors can be covered with an Equipment Floater.
• If one of your workers should get injured on the job, Workers’ compensation will give much needed protection.
• Should a critical piece of machinery break down, Mechanical Breakdown coverage will add to your protection.
Call Scurich Insurance Services at 1-800-320-3666 today and find out how you can protect your agribusiness.
Last week Governor Jerry Brown declared California is in a drought. A drought simply stated is a shortage of precipitation, whether it comes from rain or snow. There just simply isn’t any moisture in our lands. Problems that can stem from a drought can become catastrophic. Withered crops, high fire dangers, water shortages and livestock dying are just a few of the effects that a drought has on our land. Unemployment is another effect that a drought will bring. The loss of crops means no employment. In 2009, about 10,000 people lost their job due to the drought.
