Cora Fox, former staff member, also contributed to this blog.
We (Cora and Anna) traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to meet with our representatives in Congress. We met with staff from – count ‘em – nine congressional offices for Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas, and stopped by several more to drop off our farm bill platform. We let them know the next farm bill must support conservation and beginning farmers, and strengthen crop insurance.
We were able to share with congressional offices that Rep. Nolan, of Minnesota, recently introduced a bill that addresses current weaknesses in our crop insurance system, and today we’d like to share it with you.
This bill, H.R. 4865, the Crop Insurance Modernization Act of 2018, would help improve and modernize crop insurance by increasing its capacity to support conservation and beginning farmers. H.R. 4865 would:
- Remove crop insurance barriers to planting cover crops;
- Start a pilot program within crop insurance regulations to reward farmers who use conservation practices to reduce their on-farm risk;
- Improve monitoring on conservation compliance; and
- Increase access to crop insurance by expanding premium discounts for beginning farmers.
Click here to learn more about H.R. 4865.
If this proposals sounds exciting to you, be sure to give your representative a quick call to let them know they should support H.R. 4865, too.
Did you call your representative (202.224.3121) to let them know you support modernizing crop insurance and to ask them to support H.R. 4865? Let us know.
Until next time,
Anna Johnson & Cora Fox
P.S. We traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition winter meeting. We joined more than 100 people on the Hill, meeting with staff from 100 congressional offices.
Feature photo: Cora Fox and Anna Johnson met with one of Joni Ernst's staffers last week in Washington, D.C.
