Dispatches from the Fields: The risks of farming for 'non-farmers'
No government disaster assistance for alternative farmers in Iowa
Posted by Ariane Lotti

Now that Iowa has started to dry out from record flooding, farmers are looking to their fields and feeling the uncertainty of this year's crop. For conventional commodity crop farmers, that feeling is fleeting; they can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that government-backed crop insurance and disaster assistance programs [PDF] will cover their losses. For Iowa's alternative farmers, government-backed crop insurance is a pipe dream that requires them to be innovative in their risk management strategies.

Conventional commodity crop farmers can turn to the government for help in times of crop disasters, and with the passage of the 2008 Farm Bill, disaster assistance has become a permanent program. This means that in addition to benefiting from government-subsidized crop insurance, commodity crop farmers will also have a government program to fall back on when "disaster" strikes (often in the form of drought or flooding). How these funds will be used in Iowa has yet to be determined as the regulations have yet to be written, but the USDA's Risk Management Agency has started providing assistance to commodity farmers for how to deal with crop losses and to seek assistance.

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