Welasco, Texas
March 9, 2006
The clock is ticking for
drought-stricken Lower Rio Grande Valley growers who plant
cotton and grain sorghum on non-irrigated farmland. With no rain
relief in sight, they are turning to Congress for help in a
Catch-22 crop insurance situation.
If they don't plant, they say, they'll lose big. If they do
plant for the sake of increased crop insurance, they risk
creating dust-bowl like conditions.
Grain sorghum farmers in the McCook area of eastern Starr and
western Hidalgo counties have invested on average about $70 per
acre in preparing their land for planting, according to Dr. Luis
Ribera, agricultural economist at the Texas A&M Agricultural
Research and Extension Center at Weslaco.
But without soil moisture, growers know seeds are not likely to
germinate. If they decide not to plant, the "prevented," or
no-plant, clause of their crop insurance program will pay only
about $30 per acre.
For farmers like Ted Prukop of the McCook area, who farms about
1,200 acres, not planting is no option – losses would be too
great.
"This crop insurance program is written for the entire nation,"
Prukop said. "It doesn't fit in down here in our subtropical
area where we have to work the ground year round. It's not like
in Kansas where the ground freezes right after harvest and isn't
worked by the farmer until he's ready to plant again."
Ribera, who crunched the numbers for local growers, agreed.
"No-plant crop insurance does not take into account the many
expenses growers here make for months in preparing their land
for planting," he said. "These are expenses growers in other
parts of the country don't have. It's important that these
growers get paid more not to plant because, as it is now, it is
not economically viable not to plant."
Lacking that, if Prukop and his neighbors plant for the sake of
getting full-coverage insurance payments, they risk disturbing
the soil and creating dust bowl-like conditions on land that
hasn't seen significant rainfall since October.
And full coverage does not mean payment on 100 percent of the
value of their crop, Ribera said. If a crop won't make a stand
or emerge from the soil, crop insurance pays growers 65 percent
of the value of a crop, based on historical yields and a preset
value per bushels of grain sorghum or pound of cotton lint.
Adding pressure to the situation is the calendar. To qualify for
federal crop insurance and avoid penalties for planting late,
growers here have to plant by March 31.
"We need an answer pretty quick," said Prukop. "It takes me
about 10 days to plant. That means I have to make a decision
whether to plant by March 21. Every farmer out here knows when
they have to start planting to beat the March 31 deadline."
But planting could prove disastrous, farmers say. Above-average
heat and high winds during the fall and winter months has dried
out McCook-area topsoil in an area where about 62,000 acres are
planted annually to grain sorghum, Prukop said.
"Planting will only disturb the soil, pulverize it and allow it
to be picked up by the high winds, cutting and raising more soil
as it blows,"
he said. "That could lead to large scale land erosion and
jeopardize farming here in the future."
In a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, Propok
and nine other McCook-area farmers asked Congress to increase
the prevented planting coverage by 35 percent. The supplementary
payment would allow growers to recoup 81 percent of the costs
growers have made in preparing to plant.
"Most importantly," the letter states, "this would give us as
producers the incentive not to plant. This is a win-win for the
farmer and the Risk Management Agency, for they would have
reduced total indemnities (insurance payoffs)."
According to figures compiled by Ribera and submitted to
Johanns, the government could save almost $600,000 by raising
no-plant payments versus paying farmers for total losses, while
avoiding risks to the environment.
"Unless growers have a reasonable incentive not to plant," the
letter states, "we will be forced by economics to plant in order
to collect more of a crop insurance indemnity. When we do plant,
the consequences will almost certainly be very severe soil
erosion on our farms and the inevitable dust storm will
devastate our neighbors near and far, wildlife and the
environment as a whole."
Prukop said related agribusinesses also are being affected
because growers are delaying operations.
"This is no fun for anybody," he said. "We don't want to make a
living from a disaster program. In fact, if it rained several
inches right now, I'd delay planting and take the penalties
because I'd rather make a crop than get an insurance payment.
But rain is just not in the forecast."
Writer: Rod Santa Ana III |