The Rural Voice, 1986-10, Page 14Hail damage, Teviotdale area, Summer 1986
THE
CROP INSURANCE
QUANDARY
To insure or not to insure —
that's the question facing
Ontario's growers every spring
and fall. The choice is to trust in
Mother Nature, praying that
frost, hail, wind, and other "acts
of God" will leave crops alone,
or to make the banker happier by
investing in the provincial crop
insurance program.
Believers such as Ontario
Minister of Agriculture Jack Rid-
dell, who continually defends the
program, say that crop insurance
is still one of the best deals a
farmer can make. The province's
farmers, however, don't share
Riddell's confidence — the ma-
jority of growers still opt to take
12 THE RURAL VOICE
by Alice Gibb
their chances with nature. This
summer's freak hailstorm in the
Niagara peninsula and the mini -
tornados which touched down in
Wellington County have heighten-
ed the crop insurance controver-
sy. Now even insured farmers are
questioning whether the program
really works.
Administered by the province
and financed 50-50 by the federal
government and farmers, the crop
insurance program came to On-
tario in 1966, initially covering
only winter wheat. Today, the
plan covers 49 crops, including
corn (grain and/or silage), spring
grains, soybeans, white and col-
oured beans, canola, new forage
seeding, hay and pasture, black
and burley tobacco, and winter
wheat. Fruit or vegetable crops
not insured through a processor
or special fruit agent can be in-
sured as general crops.
Through a complicated for-
mula, outlined in the Canada -
Ontario Crop Insurance
brochures available at OMAF of-
fices, the grower can insure a
maximum of only 80 per cent of
his crop value, as determined by
a five-year average of crop yields.
If yields and commodity prices
have been low for three years, for
example, a farmer buying in-
surance for what is expected to be
a bumper harvest might be able