Crop Insurance Options for Fruit Growers

Sep 22, 2023

By Chris Bardenhagen

Cold weather snaps, drought, excessive rain and other uncontrollable events make farming a risky business. With fruit crops, pollination is added to the risk mixture. Crop insurance is an important tool for managing these risks. Fruit growers can use crop insurance programs to help provide income stability for their farm.

The fruit session is the first installment of the Farm Policy and Risk Management webinar series. It will focus on insurance options for Michigan tree fruit and small fruit growers. Fruit crops will include cherries, apples, grapes (including the new grapevine insurance program), peaches, blueberries and more. We will review Actual Production History (APH) and Actual Revenue History (ARH) programs. The coverage levels available, how payouts are calculated and other details will be presented. The session will also review the Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) and Micro Farm (MFP), which are based on overall crop revenue. These can be used to cover many crops and farm commodities, across multiple markets.

Cory Blumerick of GreenStone Farm Credit Services will join Chris Bardenhagen, Michigan State University Extension, in presenting this session. Cory leads GreenStone’s Specialty Crop Insurance team. He has many years of experience in helping fruit farmers to find their best options. He is also an advocate for new policies and policy changes that are beneficial for farmers and fruit growers.

Source : msu.edu

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.