Freshman U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney has ventured into the realm of federal legislation with his name as sponsor on a farm insurance bill, his first.
With Hurricane Irene in August 2011 ”“ just before harvest ”“ creating havoc on an inland arc from Rockland County to Vermont, the need for specialty crop insurance was made acute.
Called the CROP Act, the bill, if embraced by committee, by both houses of Congress and by President Obama, aims “to reform crop insurance and help specialty crop farmers.”
According to Maloney, the Creating Reliability for Our Producers (CROP) Act will “help specialty crop farmers manage their risk by encouraging the development of new and improved insurance plans for underserved crops.”
Agricultural diversity has been a clarion call of the locovore movement and many farmers now routinely grow the likes of Chinese vegetables and Swiss chard on small plots and in hothouses. Such enterprises can slip below the radar of the scale and scope of Great Plains-style American agriculture.
Noting he had recently met with farmers in Orange County, Maloney said, “I”™ve been speaking a lot with Hudson Valley producers, including at a Town Hall in Warwick last month, and there”™s a real feeling from them that the rules weren”™t written for them. The CROP Act is a much needed improvement to helping out our hard-working farmers who are one big storm away from devastation.”
The most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture count revealed more than 1,500 farms in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam and Westchester counties that employ thousands both full and part time. After Hurricane Irene, Orange County alone suffered as much as $50 million in lost produce, much of it in the fertile Black Dirt region, according to the Middletown office of Cornell Cooperative Extension.
“Particularly in the Hudson Valley, diversification of crops is at an all-time high,” said Maire Ullrich with the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Orange County. “Ensuring specialty crop farmers have more protection so they can have more safety when they diversify is very helpful.”
The legislation has friends among the furrows.
“I commend Congressman Maloney for offering the CROP Act to look at further improvements in crop insurance,” said Jeff Crist of Crist Bros. Orchard in Walden. “Although some might think this bill is down in the weeds, it is not down in the weeds for us.”
“We need more options,” said Adina Bialis of J&A Farm in Goshen, who also spoke at the teleconference. “Having the changes that Representative Maloney suggests would save the government money and really give growers a viable option.”
Impetus for the bill surfaced earlier this month when Maloney cited an “Animal Farm” discrepancy in insurance: not all of the crops in the silo are equal. Maloney asked Secretary Tom Vilsack of the USDA about the shortfalls of the current safety net for specialty crop farmers. Vilsack acknowledged in the exchange that 85 percent of commodity crop producers have crop insurance, but that number for specialty crops is 70 percent.
The legislation has bipartisan support already, with U.S. Rep Chris Gibson, a Columbia County Republican, signing on as cosponsor.
Maloney also reported U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is on board via her own similar legislation in the Senate.
