Crop Insurance Today First Quarter 2020 - 21

panelists Kurt Henke, Henke-Bufkin Law Firm,
Doug Jakway, NAU Country, and Zane Vaughn,
ARMtech, participating. NCIS speakers covered
several topics including NCIS agronomic research projects, adjuster licensing, Loss Adjuster Manual and prevented planting procedures,
Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) updates, and others.

2020 Fall Train-the-Trainer
Conference
More than 225 attendees participated in the
2020 Train-the-Trainer Fall Conference, July 1617 in Overland Park, KS. Bill Northey, Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation
(via video conference), and Martin Barbre, RMA
Administrator, addressed trending topics and
Patrick Westhoff, University of Missouri, presented information on the 2018 Farm Bill. Hybrid
Vegetable Seed, a 508(h) product, was introduced
by Keith Schumann, AgriLogic Consulting LLC,
who also presented updates to the Texas Citrus
Tree policy. RMA provided updates on Assigned
Yields, Farm Bill Rule/Basic Provisions, Sugar
Beets, Cover Crops, Whole-Farm Revenue Protection, and ARPI Data Conversion. Tim Witt,
NCIS, moderated a discussion with Claire White
and Matt Mitchell, RMA, focusing on the soonto-be introduced Nursery Value Select product.
Multi-County Enterprise Units, Handbooks, Actuarial, Crop Hail, Policy, and IT updates were
presented by NCIS staff. The conference kicks off
the new crop year with the objective to provide
company trainers information and training units
for fall agent and staff training.
NCIS also held a similar conference in early
November to update company personnel on 2020
spring crop changes.

Extension educators from Fort Valley State University in Georgia gather in advance of the risk
management workshops for training with Dr. Laurence Crane, NCIS (5th from the left) and Dr.
Albert Essel (second from right) who conduct the training sessions.

and improved communications concerning
pending changes.

Risk Management Education

Working at times in partnership with RMA
or on its own, NCIS conducts seminars on risk
management for limited-resource and socially
disadvantaged farmers and others interested in
better managing risk. The goal is that helping
farmers develop better risk management tools
will ensure their long-term viability.

Marketing Risk Management
Workshops
NCIS partnered with Extension Educators
at Delaware State University and the University
of Maryland-Eastern Shore to teach a series of
workshops to help small, limited resource, and
socially disadvantaged producers of specialty
crops manage their marketing risks. The objec-

tive was to help farmers understand their risk
exposure, determine their costs of production,
and develop marketing plans for their farms.
The project consisted of three workshops in each
state and 60 hours of individualized instruction.
Topics included how to use the business planning
approach to evaluate risk exposure and the five
decision variables that compose the marketing
mix (production, price, placement, promotion,
and people), how to use crop insurance to manage risk, and identifying specific goals and actions to complete marketing plans. This project
was the result of a competitive proposal prepared
by NCIS and selected by RMA to be funded as a
Cooperative Agreement. Dr. Laurence Crane was
Project Director and primary instructor.

Risk Management Workshops
NCIS partnered with extension educators at
several universities and organizations through-

AIP Technical Staff, TIP
Committee Meet with RMA/FBC
A meeting between AIP technical staff, including NCIS TIP Committee members and
Jessica Trites Rolle, NCIS, and RMA and Farm
Production and Conservation Business Center
(FBC) data processing, actuarial, security, prices, and IT staff was held on July 17-18 at the
USDA Building in Kansas City. AIPs and RMA
discussed a broad set of data processing issue
topics, including cover crop state subsidy data,
multi-county enterprise units, native sod, SCO
and STAX, late production data reporting, compliance review reporting, accounting reports,

Participants at the Kansas/Oklahoma Regional/State Committee annual meeting.
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Crop Insurance Today First Quarter 2020

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