Crop Insurance Today Fourth Quarter 2020 - 7

Laurence Crane with the farmers and ranchers who participated in the workshops in Fort Valley, Georgia coordinated by Fort Valley State University,
proudly displaying their Certificates of Completion.

ducers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee in responding
to risk in five emphasis areas: 1) production (crop
and livestock insurance); 2) marketing (strategies
and farmers markets); 3) financial (farm management strategies); 4) legal (liabilities and estate planning); and, 5) human resource (labor)
management. Individualized risk management
responses were formulated using the business
planning approach.
The primary goal of this course was for participants to understand their operations well
enough and to gain the skills needed to develop
personal risk management strategies for the five
risk areas specified above.
Throughout the workshops, participants
learned risk management principles and tools
and how those can be applied effectively to their
own farm. The course relied on the help of local
Extension Educators to recruit farmers to participate and they provided assistance outside of
the workshops as farmers completed homework
assignments. One of those assignments was to
conduct a risk assessment of their own farm business. The participants were then given information about alternative risk management strategies, including crop and livestock insurance, that
could be used to protect their risk. Participants
worked through case scenarios to determine
which financial and marketing opportunities
would work best for their operation. Presenters
and Extension Educators then helped farmers
form and adopt their own risk response strategy
and review the financial implications and legal
considerations of their chosen strategy.
By the end of the third workshop in the Personal Risk Management Plans course, each par-

ticipant had developed a personalized risk management action plan addressing each risk topic.
This required participants to evaluate the risk
situation of their operations and develop specific strategies to measure and manage risk. Each
participant established a goal in each of the risk
areas and identified three specific actions they
would take during the next year to reach each
goal. These five goals and 15 self-specified tasks
became their Personal Risk Management plans.
Participants were also encouraged to interact with professionals (e.g. loan officer, crop
insurance agent, estate planning advisor, etc.),
as needed to complete their 15 actions. Local
educators personally interviewed each partici-

pant at the project's end recording the number
of actions completed.
" The workshop provided resources to understand risk management on a farm. The homework
assignments tied the classwork together and the
networking opportunities were a great asset to the
workshop. " (Tennessee Farmer)

Course 2: Developing
Marketing Plans and
Strategies

In Delaware, Maryland, and Oklahoma the
course emphasis was on developing personal
marketing plans and strategies. It was designed
to enable small, beginning, limited resource, and

Laurence Crane leads a discussion on customer identification during a marketing workshop in
Harrington, Delaware. " This concentrated and hands-on approach to education typically leads
to long-term behavioral change and is consistent with my experience that behavior changes
are more likely with sustained personal support, " said Dr. Crane. " This project changed the
participants' behavior in a positive way. "
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Crop Insurance Today Fourth Quarter 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crop Insurance Today Fourth Quarter 2020