Leaders Say Preserving Crop Insurance Is Number One Priority For Farm Bill

With the first congressional session of the year starting up in Washington D.C., there's a lot of ag issues on the slate. The Republican controlled Congress looks to take up regulation issues as well as a potential new Farm Bill.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the number one priority when writing the new farm bill he has for farmers this session is to preserve a vigorous crop insurance program. He says there's no safety net more valuable to farmers and taxpayers than crop insurance.

In the case of agricultural disasters, farmers are only covered 50 percent, Grassley says, "It not only saves the taxpayers money, because obviously if we didn't have crop insurance and you had disasters in agriculture, the taxpayers would be 100 percent of it. In addition to saving the taxpayers money, we also are encouraging to plan ahead and to manage risk and 95 percent of the farmers in Iowa do that."