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Lana Cusick, 202-720-3325

CROP INSURANCE HELPS IN TOUGH TIMES

WASHINGTON, Jul 7, 2010 - When a fast moving early morning fire destroyed a 5,000 square foot calf and hay barn in February 2009 at their dairy farm in Addison, VT, the Gosliga family was thankful that over 70 volunteer firefighters from five towns prevented the blaze from spreading to four other nearby buildings, including a home.

Fire insurance helped them recover part of the costs associated with the loss of the structure. And crop insurance has helped them at other times, like when they relied on loss payments from their crop insurance policy in years when corn yields have been low.

According to Jake Gosliga, one of seven family members operating Gosliga Farm, “We always need all our feed, and we do our very best to get the corn off the fields. Our soils are clay and in wet years, the corn grows slowly and sometimes doesn’t mature. So when corn quality is low, we’ve used the loss payments from crop insurance to buy energy that helps to keep milk production up.”

According to Gosliga, "Crop insurance has been there to help us in tough times. We’ve used it for years and have been very happy with it. Now that eligibility for USDA farm programs is linked to crop insurance participation, we think it is very important to carry at least the minimum coverage. On the advice of our crop insurance agent, we’ve chosen to purchase buy-up coverage at a level that we feel provides an indemnity payment sufficient to purchase the extra feed we need.