Your farm animals and crops are precious commodities – they are what you toil at feeding and watering and sowing and trimming and weeding, day after day until you can one day, if all goes well, harvest and sell them. That is, after all, the whole point of farming, right? But what would happen if Mother Nature unleashed her fury – in the form of floods, hail, disease, derechos, wildfire, and more? It would be sad enough to potentially lose what’s so precious to you, but then to not be able to recoup financially from these losses is another punch to the gut.
Fortunately, there is crop and livestock insurance out there that can weather the storm, so to speak. However, most crop insurance out there is geared towards large-scale farming operations.
So what’s a small-scale, diversified farmer to do to protect what’s most valuable to them? There are options! Before diving into those options, you may want a primer on how crop and livestock coverage works and how it can increase your resilience. If so, start with our Crop and Livestock Insurance Basics.
If you know you want coverage, you may have heard about the Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program, which is a type of crop insurance that is tailor-made for the small-scale, diversified farm operation. Our resource, Crop and Livestock Insurance Options for Diversified Operations, provides a helpful basic overview on the WFRP program.
Managing Farm Risks With Insurance, also explores crop damage and livestock loss and the options available for small, diversified farmers, and also provides tips for talking with insurance agents about finding the right crop and livestock insurance products for these unique operations. Managing Your Farming Legal Risks with Insurance: A Farm Commons Tutorial has a module on crop and livestock insurance if you prefer to watch our recorded webinar at the computer or listen to it out in the field.
For an interactive learning experience on your own schedule, take our self-paced course Crop and Livestock Insurance Planning for Agricultural Producers. This self-paced course helps producers identify a crop and livestock insurance strategy that aligns with their goals and budget.
