(OVERLAND PARK, Kan.) –\u00a0Nearly 90 percent of Americans have a favorable view of farmers, and 92 percent said it was important to provide them with federal funding, according to a new national poll released today.\u00a0 Furthermore, positive marks cut across party lines, showing that a strong farm policy is a bipartisan issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans overwhelmingly like farmers and support the programs that protect them,\u201d explained Jon McHenry, vice president of North Star Opinion Research, the polling firm that explored the general public\u2019s views on farmers, farm policy and crop insurance. \u00a0\u201cThis response is not surprising when you consider that eight in 10 voters believe a vibrant agricultural industry was critical to the country\u2019s national security.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 70 percent of voters also said they believed that farmers should help fund part of their own safety net.\u00a0 This cost-sharing structure is at the heart of America\u2019s crop insurance policy, with farmers paying a portion of their insurance premiums and shouldering, on average, 25 percent of crop losses through deductibles.<\/p>\n
Those polled were impressed.\u00a0 Nearly 80 percent said they supported giving farmers discounts on insurance premiums and the vast majority agreed that the current premium and deductible amounts absorbed by farmers were appropriate.<\/p>\n
Americans also weighed in on the delivery of crop insurance.\u00a0 When asked who should implement the system, voters agreed by a 20-point margin that farmers and taxpayers were better served by private companies delivering crop insurance instead of the government.<\/p>\n
Support for farm policy and crop insurance even remained high when poll respondents were read a misleading statement often used by farm policy\u2019s critics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a question providing both sides, the security argument in favor of protecting farms wins by a two-to-one margin over the argument used by farm policy opponents,\u201d McHenry said.<\/p>\n
The public opinion poll<\/a>, which was commissioned by the National Crop Insurance Services, is available at www.ncis.staging.wpengine.com<\/a>.\u00a0 The phone survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted April 3-7 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (OVERLAND PARK, Kan.) –\u00a0Nearly 90 percent of Americans have a favorable view of farmers, and 92 percent said it was important to provide them with federal funding, according to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines-and-media","category-news","category-press-releases"],"yoast_head":"\n