Maci Carter caught up with Nick Luett, lead precision ag specialist for the Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS). RCIS offers crop insurance in all fifty states, covering 26 million acres of corn and soybeans across the country.
“I’ve been helping a lot with some of the newly planted winter wheat down in Oklahoma, making sure that we can use precision ag on that,” Luett said. “And making sure that we have the right acreage for the coverage as well. I think that is the biggest thing in my role here at RCIS is making sure that we can adequately insure what you actually plant to save you some premium dollars and help build your APH.”
RCIS is committed to utilizing precision agriculture data in the crop insurance space. “One of the big benefits for a grower is if I have a loss, I have a plant map a harvest map, and a calibration done to RMA standards, I can now use it as a hard record. I don’t have to have bin measurements, element sheets, or feed records,” Luett explained.
He told of a producer in Illinois who bought 75 percent coverage wheat using precision ag acres. Over ten years, an $11 per acre increase in guarantees was observed.
Precision ag allows farmers to utilize data to make better economic decisions by knowing exactly which types of nitrogen, herbicides, and crop varieties to put in precise locations. More information can be found at RCIS.com or by reaching out to a local RCIS crop insurance agent.
