Disclaimer: This web page is designed to aid farmers with their marketing and risk management decisions. The risk of loss in trading futures, options, forward contracts, and hedge-to-arrive can be substantial and no warranty is given or implied by the author or any other party. Each farmer must consider whether such marketing strategies are appropriate for his or her situation. This web page does not represent the views of Kansas State University. 

Are You Doing a Risk/Crop Insurance Workshop in Wichita?[1]

Art

Happy New Year!!

I had a call from a producer saying he heard on the radio there was going to be an insurance meeting talking about crop insurance in Wichita; do you know about this meeting?  I thought maybe it was something you were doing?  Please advise if you have information on this meeting.

Enjoyed the article that you sent and cc several others including me on the differences in settlement prices for ACRE, SURE, and crop insurance.  In some case there were big price differences. Thanks for keeping me updated.

Oklahoma Agent

Dear Oklahoma Agent,

Yes, the RAMII workshop is on Feb 23 in Wichita.  The link to the details is at:

http://www.agmanager.info/events/RAM/2011/default.asp

I am presenting a RAMII workshop in Waco, Texas on January 27 as part of a multi- seminar educational program.  I am also scheduled for Pennsylvania on Monday, January 10 and Wyoming in March.

At all locations I am doing an all day workshop that combines crop insurance, marketing, SURE, and ACRE into a two crop case study.  There are 6,400 possible outcomes for SURE with just two crops and 4 yields!

A major focus this year will be the Common Crop Insurance Policy (CCIP), aka “COMBO”.   The price election is the same in all 3 insurance contracts, and they have the same yield guarantee.  Therefore, the added premium for RP-HPE and RP is for price risk only.

Because of higher premiums due to higher prices, some farmers are considering changing from RP to YP.  In most cases, that is a really bad decision because the price insurance is really cheap in RP, especially the “put”.  If farmers still think the premiums are too high they should buy RP and then sell a few of the options.  Growers will still have more coverage after selling off part of their RP guarantee than they would with either YP or RP-HPE.  I will post a new paper on this issue on AgManager.info.  Bottom line, the “options” are really cheap in RP.  The case study will help farmers understand how all of these USDA programs and marketing tools fit together. 

The Waco workshop is a go.  If producers want a better understanding of futures, options, basis, and crop insurance, etc. then the Texas A&M workshop covers all of these items.  It is a major time commitment by participants because I think it is a total of 10 workshop days.  I know they still have openings to register for the Waco Workshop.  I don’t know if they price my presentation separate from all of the other presentations; if someone only wanted to attend just my workshop.  One needs to call the contact person.  They also have had crop insurance agents, ag lenders, etc. take the A&M Master Marketing course. 

Agents, lenders, commodity brokers, grain merchandisers etc. are also welcome to attend the Wichita workshop.  The Wichita workshop will depend on registration.  So if one plans to go one needs to give the contact person a call.  I would hate for people to show up and find out the workshop was cancelled because we did not get enough registrations.

Thanks for the interest.

Art