Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is back visiting with Texas A&M’s Bart Fischer, this time talking about the growth of the Livestock Risk Protection Program.
Aside from his role as Research Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University, Fischer is also the former Chief Economist of the House Agriculture Committee. Fischer was a key player in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills.
“Following the 2018 Farm Bill with Mr. Lucas, we have had LFP in place, Livestock Forage Program, and that is administered by FSA,” Fischer said. “There had really been no innovation on the crop insurance side for livestock.”
While there have been a few tools such as livestock risk margin and livestock risk protection, Fischer said these programs did not advance very much because up until 2018, the federal government could not spend more than 20 million dollars a year on livestock policies.
“That 20 million would buy about 500 million dollars for the liability protection, but then those policies stopped being sold once they hit that limit,” Fischer said.
In the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 that they passed in February of ’18, Fischer said there was a provision in the bill that did away with the 20-million-dollar limitation. Since then, Fischer said there has been a substantial increase in innovation in the crop insurance sector for livestock.
“We are over 20 billion dollars in liability now (coverage),” Fischer said. “A 4,000 percent increase. It is very much a success story.”
Now, added to the mix recently is the Weaned Calf Risk Protection, a new insurance option for livestock producers in several states.
“It is incredibly important that you work with a crop insurance agent to learn all of the ins and outs,” Fischer said.
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