ICGA OPPOSES FARM BILL AMENDMENTS THAT HARM CROP INSURANCE
Lindsay Mitchell
The House Rules Committee met yesterday and approved the first 20 amendments that can be offered during the Farm Bill debate. These 20 were not controversial.
The Committee is meeting again this afternoon to consider which additional amendments can be offered during the House floor debate. Among these additional amendments are six amendments that the Illinois Corn Growers Association opposes and sees as detrimental to the Federal crop insurance program.
The biggest potential to harm farmers comes with an amendment to eliminate the Harvest Price Option (HPO) subsidy. An HPO policy will increase its guarantee when harvest price exceeds the projected price, as often happens in short crop years. Products with HPO are used on over 90% of the insured acres in many Midwest counties.
Learn more about the potential impact of losing HPO subsidies here.
The complete list of the amendments ICGA opposes are as follows:
|
# |
Sponsor(s) |
Summary |
|---|---|---|
|
24 |
Sanford (SC), Kind (WI) |
Lowers the Profit Margin that Crop Insurance Companies are guaranteed referred to as the “Target Rate” of return from 14.5% to 12% |
|
33 |
Reduces crop insurance premium subsidies for insurance policies by 15 percentage points, except for catastrophic level of coverage. |
|
|
34 |
Kind (WI), Sensenbrenner (WI) |
Allows for public disclosures of crops insurance premium subsidies. |
|
44 |
Duncan (TN), Norman (SC) |
Eliminates the Harvest Price Option (HPO) subsidy. |
|
51 |
Rothfus (PA), Kind (WI), Sensenbrenner (WI), Polis (CO) |
Limit crop insurance subsidies to only those producers that have an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $500,000 or less. |
|
57 |
Amends the federal crop Insurance act to prohibit the Department of Agriculture from subsidizing crop insurance premiums for tobacco. Any saving that occur as a result of this bill must be deposited in the Treasury and used for deficit reduction. |
