Softening the Blow: Crop insurance can help farmers survive the setbacks of a risky business

On a late summer day, the Flats Mentor Farm stand at the Brookline Farmers Market is brimming with amaranth, Chinese broccoli, herbs and other greens. In the bustle of market day, the couple running the stand are too busy to chat, but quickly say they’re selling other farmers’ vegetables. In July, their crops were flooded; they lost everything, they said. They’re waiting for “next year,” the woman says with a rueful smile.

The summer floods devastated Flats Mentor Farm, the 70-acre plot in Lancaster where small farmers are given land, training and assistance to grow many varieties of vegetables. Farmland farther west in Massachusetts and in Vermont also was flooded. Although the state gave emergency aid—and Go Fund Me and similar drives have helped—most of these farmers did not have insurance, something that other victims of flooding, hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters depend on.

“My heart was broken,” says Josephine Kihu, who farms in Lancaster Meadow. Her corn, amaranth, okra and African vegetables were thriving and nearing harvest, she recalls, when the rains and flooding hit. Even the garlic that she had planted the autumn before was ruined. Brought up in Kenya raising coffee, Kihu, who also works as a nurse’s assistant, knows well how uncertain farming can be. But standing water and possible contamination kept her from replanting her one-and-a-half acres where she grows crops to sell through Flats Mentor and in Worcester. She did get a check from the state, she says, but it didn’t cover her losses. In late summer, she was planting a few more vegetables so she would have some to freeze for winter.

“During this summer’s flooding disaster, farmers had to be enrolled in NAP before the July floods, says Bailey Albert, Massachusetts outreach coordinator for the Farm Service Agency, to qualify for funds to cover losses.”

As the 2023 Farm Bill slowly inches its way to fruition amid turmoil in Congress, crop insurance is its second-biggest funding element. Who gets United States Department of Agriculture–backed insurance, and why vegetable farmers in the Northeast don’t often qualify or seek it out, reflects the complicated landscape of American agriculture and politics. Although the importance of the vegetables New England farmers sell locally has been recognized more and more, commodity mono-crops such as wheat, corn and soy get preference in insurance payouts, and many believe that political lobbying by these interests shortchanges small and diversified farms.

The Farm Bill can seem mysterious: Almost 80% of the funding goes to nutrition programs, mainly Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and not to agricultural interests. The next biggest piece is crop insurance; smaller amounts are set aside for conservation and other interests. As interest in local produce and small farms in the Northeast has increased, there have been efforts, starting in the ’90s, to help small farmers and those with diversified crops qualify for crop insurance. But those working with these growers, who often depend on multiple crops and several plantings a season, say crop insurance, even subsidized by the USDA, is often financially out of reach.

Jessy Gill—program and policy director of World Farmers, which oversees the Flats Mentor Farm programs— says her organization is trying to find “ways to address crop insurance” for small-scale diversified farmers, but that the issue is intimidating. As an example, she points out that a farmer with 50 varieties of vegetables would have to register each crop, keep records on details like length of row, numbers and spacing for each planting of each crop, many of which are planted multiple times in a season. Although there have been “good conversations” with Risk Management Agency officials (the USDA agency that oversees crop insurance), there’s been “no significant progress.” For those who were insured under a companion policy called Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), operated by Farm Service Agency, the payouts for the July disaster are still being processed and most likely will not begin to cover losses for some of the cultural crops Flats Mentor farmers grow.

Some of the Risk Management tools are Whole Farm Revenue and Micro Farm options, which might help these small vegetable farmers, along with NAP programs that include provisions for novice socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers. However, like any insurance, the policy has to be in place before the crops are planted, and uncertainty around whether a disaster will happen, costs and the record keeping and paperwork involved means many small vegetable farmers don’t apply for insurance.

Some single crops, like cranberries, fruit trees and blueberries, are more likely to be insured, says Devon Smolak, an insurance agent with Crops Growers LLP. But farming is inherently risky because of weather and other conditions, and not like car insurance, she says, so conventional insurance companies avoid it. The USDA plans are designed to mitigate this. Under the main Risk Management insurance program, farmers buy crop insurance through private agencies, but the fees are USDA subsidized. The NAP program also has fees, but those can be set aside or adjusted depending on the farmer’s circumstances.

One challenge, Smolak says, is that “it takes a long time to grow these programs.”

However, the Risk Management Agency made changes in 2022 after getting feedback from producers. Eligibility was expanded for the Whole Farm Revenue Protection and the Micro Farm policies to give more options for specialty, organic and novice farmers, and those selling to local markets, according to a USDA spokesperson. Along with increasing the maximum insurable revenue under both plans, RMA has expanded and improved Whole Farm and Micro Farm policies, and reduced paperwork requirements.

During this summer’s flooding disaster, farmers had to be enrolled in NAP before the July floods, says Bailey Albert, Massachusetts outreach coordinator for the Farm Service Agency, to qualify for funds to cover losses. Some did have coverage, but the state stepped in with emergency funds to help others. The FSA is working, she says, to make the process easier for small farmers.

Despite the challenges, Daniel Smiarowski, Massachusetts executive director of the Farm Service Agency, believes that having crop insurance is valuable. A farmer himself, he says: “The farmer wants to mitigate his risk,” and be able to cover the costs of seed and equipment for the next year.

Because, as Josephine Kihu says, she’ll plant again next spring. “Some seasons are good, some are not good,” she says philosophically.

“Maybe it will be a good year.”

This story appeared in the Winter 2024 issue.