Crop Insurance Needed

Crop insurance has become the most popular safety net for farmers because it replaces the costly emergency disaster relief bills of the past.

Tom Zacharias of National Crop Insurance Services discusses how his organization and the USDA's Risk Management Agency work together in developing crop insurance products.

"Working with the legislators and developing proposals that they think needs their need and then once we know what those look like our jobs far as the industry goes is to implement those proposals RMA will ultimately develop the policy language in the rating behind it what we're able to do is provide a filter between the companies and RMA we can reach out to the individual companies for expertise and various areas a underwriting loss adjustment gather those subject matter expertise from the company's sit down and meet with RMA on the various say there's a proposal or the data reporting requirements important if you look at an average policy to their there maybe upward of a thousand data elements on that's a lot of information to carry and it's got to be right."

83 percent of farmers - in a recent survey - said crop insurance was a very important part of their risk management plans.