South Dakota’s history is deeply rooted in agriculture, perhaps more so than any other state in the union. From the homesteaders who came here in the 19th century, with little more than a plow and a dream, to their descendants who still work the land, agriculture is the way of life for many South Dakotans.

As the president of the S.D. Farm Bureau and a livestock, corn and soybean farmer myself, I can tell you firsthand that our state’s farmers personify a work ethic and a sense of pride and purpose that we are seeing less and less of outside of agriculture these days.

But agriculture is more than just a proud tradition — it’s also S.D.’s top industry, with a $25.6 billion economic impact each year. Our farmers and ranchers generate 20 percent of our state’s economic activity and provide jobs, directly and indirectly, to 122,000 residents.

It’s essential that we preserve S.D.’s farm economy, not just for our own economic well-being, but for all Americans. Our nation’s farmers play an indispensable role in ensuring a safe, affordable and stable food supply. And this role is becoming increasingly important as we struggle to meet the needs of a growing world population. In short, food security is a vital part of our national security and that’s something we need now more than ever.

Unfortunately, our farm economy has seen better days. Our farm families are facing a year of projected below-cost returns on corn, soybeans and wheat. Overall, farm income is also projected to decrease again in 2016. This will be the third consecutive year of declining farm income, following sharp drops in 2014 and 2015 totaling 56 percent in those two years. If the 2016 income projection comes to fruition, it would mark the lowest farm income level since 2002.

This is why having a sufficient farm safety net — with crop insurance as the cornerstone — is more critical than ever. Crop insurance provides protection against the one thing that even the most resilient farmer cannot defeat — the wrath of Mother Nature.

Crop insurance is a unique public-private partnership that not only supports farmers, but eases the burden on taxpayers. Prior to the emergence of crop insurance as the top risk management tool for farmers, natural disasters regularly resulted in very expensive, unbudgeted ad hoc disaster bills from Congress. Now, when disaster strikes, farmers receive an indemnity check.

Let’s be clear, crop insurance is not a handout — far from it. To gain coverage, farmers have to put skin in the game. In fact, since 2000, farmers have spent nearly $30 billion out of their own pockets to purchase crop insurance protection. We only collect an indemnity after we’ve suffered a verifiable loss and met our deductible.

We purchase crop insurance for our family farm every year and have never filed a major claim. But that’s hardly the point. Like our fellow farmers, we purchase crop insurance for the same reasons we purchase home insurance or car insurance — with the hope we’ll never need it. But we’ll keep purchasing it every year because some day we might. Crop insurance gives us peace of mind, and if we ever experience a major crop disaster, would provide us with the resources to keep farming.

Farmers have faced tough times before and rest assured we will get through them again. Old fashioned hard work, innovation and smart farm policies like crop insurance will help ensure that the proud S.D. farming tradition will live on for many future generations, and, in turn, will secure a bright future for us all.

Scott VanderWal is a third-generation family farmer from Volga. He is president of the South Dakota Farm Bureau and vice-president of the American Farm Bureau. This op-ed appeared in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on August 9, 2016.

If there is one place that, in recent years, overwhelmingly demonstrates the need and importance of U.S. farm policy, it is California. For the past four years, this top agricultural producing state has experienced record drought conditions and for farmers like my husband and me, it has taken a toll on our operation.

We have been growing rice in the Sacramento Valley for 30 years and we have never seen a weather event this relentless. Although the arrival of El Nino has provided much needed rain, the effects are marginal because of the intensity of the drought.

Operating loans are essential for every farmer because of the cost of producing crops, but for my family they have enabled us to keep going to the next year despite depressed yields and prices, and in some cases the inability to plant a crop at all.

And we would not be able to receive this crucial financing without crop insurance and farm policy in place. Farming is an inherently risky business and bankers want assurances that we will be able to pay back the loan if disaster strikes. We were not born into farming – we built our operation from the ground up – so we still have land and equipment payments to make regardless of whether we have a good or bad growing season, or whether a natural disaster wipes out our crops altogether. Crop insurance is something we purchase each year to manage this risk and we only receive an indemnity when we suffer a verifiable loss. Even then, it doesn’t make us whole, but it does soften the blow from a bad year.

It’s important to have this kind of safety net in place for all farmers, all across the country. And, I am always alarmed by the calls in Washington to cut what remains of the farm safety net, especially from those who have no idea what it takes to grow food and fiber. We need risk management tools now more than ever to help us overcome unpredictable weather events.

Additionally, we need policy in place to combat unfair practices with our foreign competitors like China and Thailand whose support for their rice growers far exceeds that of the United States and actually violates agreements under the World Trade Organization (WTO). While the U.S. was reforming its policy in the 2014 Farm Bill, other countries were ramping up support for their farmers, in some cases by more than a 100 percent. Their policies are trade distorting and leave American growers at a competitive disadvantage.

American farmers can and do manage extraordinary risks, year in and year out, but we cannot manage the challenges associated with unpredictable and sustained natural disasters, volatile markets, and trade distorting policies of our foreign counterparts without risk management tools like crop insurance and farm policy.

Lawmakers in Washington should consider this reality the next time they want to cut farm policy spending. If they want to continue to have agricultural production in this country, and in California in particular, they need to invest in it.

Lorraine Greco serves on the California Board for the U.S. Rice Producers Association. She grows organic rice with her husband in northern California.

Agriculture has been my passion since an early age growing up on the family farm. I have continued the tradition with a farm of my own.Additionally, I have worked as an agricultural banker for nearly four decades. I started out working in the Farm Credit System, but eventually moved over to the private sector because I wanted to help farmers with estate planning needs in addition to providing credit.

I like to help farmers make the right decisions about their operations, especially as it relates to setting up the next generation of agricultural producers. I want them to be in a good position for the future and prepared for the inevitable challenges that will come their way.

But, I grow more and more concerned about two current trends that I believe threaten the success of agriculture. One is the average age of the American farmer continues to climb while the number of beginning farmers is trending downward. The second trend is the relentless attacks on the farm safety net in Washington that make the uncertainty of farming even more precarious, especially for those young producers just starting.

For example, the 2014 Farm Bill had barely been in place when opponents began proposing cuts – the worst of which appeared in a budget agreement that came together late last year under the cover of darkness and without any consultation with anyone remotely close to farming. The proposal would have essentially gutted crop insurance, which is one of the key elements of the farm safety net.Fortunately, the agricultural community came together and fought off that cut, but this type of attack is a sign of things to come, and it doesn’t bode well for the overall outlook for American agriculture.

A farmer has to invest so much money to grow a crop that they rely on banks for operating loans. Banks would have a hard time making those loans without assurance that farmers would have a way to pay it back if a natural disaster struck.

Crop insurance and farm policy enables everyone – from the farmer to the banker to the taxpayer – to plan for those disasters and overcome them when they happen. If lawmakers continue to try and chip away at this safety net, farmers will not have the ability to survive. This is especially true for young, beginning farmers who have less access to credit and capital.

Therefore, it’s critical that crop insurance remain intact. Investing a future in farming is already a chilling prospect for most young people, given the expense of raising crops, the volatility of the markets and weather events and the low returns on investment. It’s enough to discourage any reasonable person from even trying regardless of whether they are starting from scratch or inheriting the family operation.

As Congress and the White House wrestle with their respective budgets in the coming weeks, I hope good sense will prevail and they’ll leave crop insurance and farm policy alone. Given the current demographics of farming, now is not the time to jeopardize the one thing that farmers can count on.

Larry Kummer is Market President for the Northeast Indiana Horizon Bank.

Many folks might not realize this, but the passage of the 2014 Farm Bill was a turning point in American history, from an agricultural perspective.  Largely gone are the days of government support programs like direct payments.  In their place, and at the center stage of farm risk management tools, is crop insurance.

I had a chance to learn the value of crop insurance first-hand when my cousin and I rented our first farm together in 2012.  We’ve been farming with our family for many years, but felt it was time to expand out and grab some of our own.  Of course, little did we know that the year we kicked off our farming careers would soon become the driest year in decades. We lost all of our dryland crops, roughly forty percent of our acres that year. Thankfully, we had purchased crop insurance.

Unlike days of old, crop insurance is not a federal handout.  In fact, if farmers want to enjoy the protection provided by crop insurance, they must purchase it.  And they do so willingly, spending roughly $4 billion per year out of their own back pockets on crop insurance premiums alone.

For most beginning farmers, crop insurance is nearly a necessity, since banks are hesitant to make loans to farmers who lack sufficient collateral.  Crop insurance allows banks the opportunity to increase lending capabilities with the security of crop insurance.  That’s because with a crop insurance policy in hand, banks feel more secure making those loans to  farmers, since there’s a guarantee of revenue even if the crop fails.

Crop insurance is a public-private partnership whereby individual farmers like me can buy policies for insurance that is specifically tailored for our tolerance to risk and the profile of our farm.  Crop insurance is affordable to farmers, thankfully, because the federal government provides a discount, ensuring that all farmers, young and old, big and small, can purchase policies if they choose to.

Farmers buy crop insurance for the same reason drivers purchase auto insurance:  it offers some degree of stability in times of disaster.  Crop insurance has become, in essence, the nation’s insurance policy for the food supply.  When Mother Nature strikes and farmers lose their crops, those with crop insurance policies in hand can bounce back and plant again the next year.

Crop insurance has also removed some of the financial risk from taxpayers.  Prior to the rise of modern day crop insurance, the wide-scale disaster that we experienced with the great drought of 2012 would have necessitated a very expensive, ad hoc disaster bill from Congress.  Those bills are big and are fully funded by taxpayers.

And while anything is better than nothing when you literally lose the farm, those disaster funds usually took a year or more to arrive in the hands of farmers who needed them.  In my case when I lost forty percent of my crop in 2012, a year would have been much too late.

Crop insurance, on the other hand, is administered by private insurance companies and the indemnity arrives in weeks or a month or two, not years later.  The crop insurance policy I purchased not only allowed me and my cousin to pay back our production loan, but also meet our forward contracting obligations.  And we were able to bounce back and plant the next year.  That’s a smart public policy because it ensures food security for our nation.

Of course crop insurance has its critics, and their sights are squarely on crop insurance, since it’s really the only game in town. And that’s why it’s important for farmers to speak up and let their elected officials know how much they value this risk management tool.

Needless to say, if we hadn’t purchased crop insurance our first year of farming, my cousin and I would be spending years paying off that production loan.  And without this valuable risk management tool available, I’d venture to say many more of America’s farmers would have been joining us.

Scott Reilly farmer and crop insurance agent and lives in Spalding Nebraska.

My farm has been in my family since the mid-1800s. I have seen firsthand how farming has changed over the decades. It is certainly more expensive to farm than when my parents and grandparents and great-great grandparents farmed the land, but one thing hasn’t changed in more than 150 years: farming is an unpredictable business.

Farmers can’t predict the future, but we can make a genuine effort to be smart, informed business owners. We try to make the right decisions and work with what we have. The problem is when ‘what we have to work with’ is ripped out from underneath us. Without crop insurance, many farmers wouldn’t be able to keep farming. Cutting crop insurance would be pulling the rug from underneath agriculture.

Before the modern day crop insurance system, farmers relied on ad hoc disaster relief payments. This was a costly and unpredictable option for all of us – the government, the taxpayer and the farmer, who in some cases may have received a payment too late to avoid bankruptcy.

Congress agreed that crop insurance was the best risk management tool for farmers. In the 2014 Farm Bill, they implemented a crop insurance system that ensured farmers would have access to affordable crop insurance while removing the risk from the taxpayer. In stride, farmers have made operating decisions with the assumption that all the policies of this bill would be in place until the Farm Bill expires in 2018.

Now, in 2015, this proven risk management tool, crop insurance, is in front of the firing squad. I’m not certain why some Members of Congress are willing to turn their backs on farmers now. Washington is nearly 900 miles away from my family farm. From that distance, it may be easy to assume that cuts to farm programs, like crop insurance, would have no effect on farmers, but that’s not an accurate picture.

Crop insurance is the only safety net that most farmers have anymore. Nearly all the cropland in the United States is protected by crop insurance. In Wisconsin, a majority of crop acres are insured, including grain commodities and specialty crops.

Insurance not only allows farmers to face natural disasters and damaging production years without losing everything, but it provides assurance that we can make payments to our banks. The same way any person in this country cannot get a house loan or a car loan without proof of insurance, agricultural banks want the guarantee that farmers can make their payments.

The agriculture economy is struggling. Farm income continues to decline, crop prices are down and inputs continue to rise. The 2015-16 farm year may be a make or break year for many farmers who are ending the year in the red. Forty years ago, a farmer could lose a crop one year and still farm the next. Nowadays one crop loss could end someone’s farming career. In the current state of agriculture, we can’t afford to have another leg chopped off our stool that’s already leaning.

My wife and I have risked our livelihood to maintain the farm for our children and grandchildren, just as my parents and grandparents did for us. Without crop insurance, we would have to quit farming. For the events we can’t predict, crop insurance ensures we won’t lose our multi-generational family farm.

Darrell Crapp is a farmer from Lancaster, Wisconsin. He farms in partnership with his two sons.  This op-ed appeared in the Prairie du Chien Courier Press on January 20, 2016.

The passage of the 2014 Farm Bill was the beginning of a new chapter in U.S. farm policy, putting to rest most of the old farm support programs and replacing them with a reformed farm safety net and its centerpiece: Crop insurance.

Unlike farm programs of the past, only farmers who purchase crop insurance enjoy its protection. In fact, when a farmer purchases crop insurance, they are handed a bill, not a check. Crop insurance is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, with farmers paying tens of thousands of dollars per year on premiums for policies that most of them will hopefully not need.

The Farm Bill was a grand compromise. In exchange for $23 billion in spending cuts programs, Congress required market-oriented reforms to commodity programs and made a five-year commitment to ensure the affordability, availability and viability of crop insurance. Unfortunately, anti-farmer groups are targeting crop insurance with proposed cuts that would seriously hamstring the private sector delivery that is the hallmark of success for the program. That would not only threaten to make the system unworkable for farmers, but also endanger the reliability of our nation’s food supply.

Farmers and farm groups value crop insurance because it combines the efficiency of the private sector with the universal coverage of the public sector. Today, virtually any farmer who wants to purchase crop insurance can, and here in Wisconsin, farmers spent roughly $86 million out of their own pockets to do so this year alone. Nationally, that number usually exceeds $4 billion annually.

Remember the historic drought of 2012 that threatened the nation’s heartland and was compared to the dreadful days of the great Dust Bowl? In the past, a disaster of that magnitude would have triggered an overly expensive and completely taxpayer-funded disaster bill. And although those funds were appreciated, they could take months or years to arrive, oftentimes too late to stop a foreclosure.

Things have changed dramatically now that farmers have much improved access to crop insurance, which now protects more than 90 percent of planted cropland. When the drought laid siege to the nation’s heartland, private sector crop insurance adjusters were quickly on the scene, and indemnity checks were usually in the hands of farmers who had verifiable losses in weeks, not months.

Crop insurance worked so well in 2012 that the nation’s farmers bounced back the next year and produced an enormous bounty of grains. And there wasn’t a single call for a disaster bill.

Farmers are the engines that drive the economy of rural America, and without a sufficient safety net in place – like crop insurance – that entire equation is at risk. That is why not only farmers, but ranchers, input suppliers, processors, and equipment companies have all called on Congress to protect crop insurance from any further cuts.

As a farmer, I can tell you that I take great pride in what I do and I understand the important role I play in producing the nation’s food, fiber, feed, and fuel supply. It seems that farmers and consumers alike here in Wisconsin need to remind our congressional delegation of this fact as well.

Tom Gillis, President, Wisconsin Corn Growers Association

It is no secret that farm demographics demonstrate an alarming trend in American agriculture.

The average age of the American farmer is rising while the number of beginning farmers is decreasing.

These beginning farmers are typically younger than their more established counterparts with less access to credit and capital.

I see this reality every day as a banker at one of the largest agricultural lending institutions in Indiana. In general, all farmers need access to credit to operate and manage a farm, but it is even more crucial for a young farmer because of the enormous startup costs.

It is not an exaggeration to say that farmers borrow more in a single year to grow a crop than some Americans borrow in a lifetime.

And, frankly, banks can be wary of lending to a young farmer just starting out because of the combination of a short credit history and the inherent riskiness of the business.

The one factor in their favor is crop insurance. By purchasing a policy, young farmers enhance their ability to obtain financing because banks have the assurance they can make payments even during tough times.

But opponents of farm policy in Washington are proposing legislation that, if enacted, would threaten the viability of this important risk management tool and make it harder for young, beginning farmers to survive.

These farm policy critics would have you believe that barring producers with large operations from participating in crop insurance helps smaller farmers.

Actually, it does the opposite.

Pooling of risk is essential for any viable insurance program. Because every farmer of every size in every part of the country can purchase crop insurance, the risk pool is large and diverse, which makes crop insurance affordable for all farmers and minimizes the financial exposure of the bank, the farmer and the taxpayer.

Similarly, car insurers want older, more experienced drivers in the same risk pool as those who are younger and potentially more accident-prone.

Eliminating the more established farmers from the mix shrinks this pool and undermines the entire system, making it harder for smaller, beginning farmers to get insurance coverage and, subsequently, agricultural financing.

Statistics already show us that farming is a hard life with fewer and fewer people willing to try it.

Now is not the time to make starting a farm even more difficult by destroying the viability and affordability of crop insurance.

Now is the time to protect the one thing beginning farmers and their bankers can count on.

Joe Kessie is the senior vice president and commercial south regional manager at Lake City Bank in Warsaw, Indiana.

Weather anomalies have challenged farmers since the earliest days of agriculture. A flood, hail storm or drought can leave a farmer without a harvestable crop at the end of the season. In Central Kansas, producers have been fortunate in the fact that they have not had to endure multiple years of drought or poor production. However, neighboring areas such as Southwest Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas and areas further west have not been so lucky. There is no doubt that crop insurance has helped some farmers stay in business through the tough times.

The United States has learned in hindsight that providing retroactive disaster relief is not only destabilizing for farmers but expensive for taxpayers. Prior to our current crop insurance system, it could have taken months if not years for farmers to receive relief payments following a disaster. While the support did not go unnoticed, there were many instances when the payments came too late to save a farmer from insolvency.

It is a fact that strong farm policy and support for crop insurance goes beyond the farmer, not only benefitting rural America but consumers as well. In the 2014 Farm Bill, crop insurance was recognized as the primary risk management tool for farmers, shifting a good share of the risks associated with farming away from the American taxpayer.

The key to a viable crop insurance system is the public-private partnership that makes it the success it has been. The private sector sells and services crop insurance policies and farmers pay premiums and have deductibles, just like other insurance policies. To incentivize farmers to buy crop insurance, the government partially discounts premiums to ensure that coverage is affordable, available to everyone, and economically viable.

Lenders also play a role in encouraging farmers to make informed decisions about managing their operating risk. At Central National Bank, we are agriculture lenders as well as licensed crop insurance agents. We encourage all of our farmer customers to protect their investment with crop insurance and as a financial institution, we may even be able to offer better loan terms to a producer that implements a solid risk management program.

It is important to keep in mind that crop insurance is a risk management tool, not a profit center. Some have charged that farmers would rather collect a crop insurance check than a good harvest.  Nothing is further from the truth.  Simple math suggests that “playing the crop insurance game” is not a sustainable business plan. In 10 years of working with producers, I’ve yet to meet anyone who would rather collect a crop insurance check than harvest a good crop.  

 As we enter into a period of declining margins, it will be important for producers to review all aspects of their operation, including risk management programs.  Recently, the farm economy has seen double-digit declines in net farm income as well as increases in the number of short-term operating loans. Having access to viable risk management tools will not necessarily add to the bottom line, but it is important for producers to utilize tools such as crop insurance to protect revenue streams through a possible prolonged downturn in the farm economy.

Not only does a well thought-out crop insurance plan speak to a producer’s management skills, but crop insurance also provides a backstop so producers are able to meet their financial obligations. Ensuring farmers have access to affordable, viable crop insurance options is not only critical for the farm business, but it will certainly impact future ag lending decisions in terms of assessing operating risk for loans.

Aaron Gasper is an agriculture and commercial lender at Central National Bank in Salina, Kansas.