By Lynn Kime
Grower input is needed to explore a crop insurance policy that would cover apple trees for many of the same causes of loss as the apple fruit policy.
The Federal Crop Insurance Commission (FCIC) no longer develops crop insurance policies, instead they contract with private companies to conduct the development work. There are several companies throughout the United States that usually develop policies and these companies have years of experience in the crop insurance business. These companies do not sell crop insurance but work in policy development. The FCIC contracted with Agrilogic Consulting, LLC to begin exploring a crop insurance policy that would cover apple trees for many of the same causes of loss as the apple fruit policy. Currently, the crop is covered but the trees are not. These covered losses might be; weather, disease, and other causes of loss. Agrilogic needs Pennsylvania (PA) grower's input to have a clear picture of the needs of East coast producers.
How many of you have had trees with a heavy crop load break during an extended period of rain and high winds? To have valuable input from growers, Agrilogic would like to have as many growers attend the listening session scheduled for Wednesday February 7, 2018 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM at the Penn State Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville, PA. Please register for this valuable listening session by contacting Ray Prewett directly at 956-458-1616 or rprewett@agrilogic.com.
This session is designed to help Agrilogic decide how the policy and any guidelines should be written and to determine if there is enough potential usage to warrant the development of a policy. If the indicators reveal growers will not use a policy, no policy will be developed or offered in specific areas. For a policy to be developed there needs to be enough volume of usage to make the policy available. I assume the policy will be developed (if warranted) and there will be areas where it will be piloted and it would be great if PA was one of these areas. If PA is not in the piloted area, it will not be available until the policy is made permanent.
Agrilogic had a listening session in Michigan and I assume the west coast but I am not sure that has happened yet. They are also trying to hold a session in NY. Virginia and North Carolina may not have face-to-face sessions as VA may participate in the Pennsylvania session.