Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to Offer Crop Insurance Discount Program

Sep 29, 2023

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig announced today that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship will again offer its crop insurance discount program for acres that are planted with cover crops. Farmers and landowners who plant fall cover crops will have the opportunity to apply for a $5 per acre discount on their spring crop insurance premiums.

Farmers and landowners may start enrolling in the crop insurance discount program on December 1.

“Planting cover crops improves water quality, enhances soil health, produces valuable forage and feed for livestock and yields many other agronomic benefits for farmers,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. “Cover crop utilization continues to rise in Iowa, and we want to further accelerate the adoption of this proven water quality practice by offering this crop insurance discount incentive.”

To qualify for the program, the cover crop acres cannot be enrolled in other state or United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) cost share programs.

Now in its seventh year, this innovative program has become a model for other states as well as the federal government. To date, nearly 2,000 farmers have enrolled over 1,000,000 acres of cover crops in the program.

Source : iowaagriculture.gov

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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