Lawmakers Offer New
Crop Insurance Plan

WASHINGTON —(AP)— Plains-state senators launched a push last week for a crop insurance overhaul that would provide farmers with more coverage at lower prices.

Many farmers don't bother to buy crop insurance because they consider the premiums too costly for the coverage — about 65 percent of eligible acreage —_ they receive. With farm country crippled by recession, Congress is seeking to reinforce the safety net without scrapping the 1996 farm law that phased out Depression-era price supports.

Supporters of the crop insurance reforms say a vital component will be giving farmers new tools for handling market fluctuations as they move away from reliance on government subsidies tied to crop production.

Under legislation introduced Monday by Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., start-up farmers or those who have added land or rotated crops would get an average production history credit. That's because under the current system, insurers aren't willing to cover completely new crops until a few years have passed and they've been established.

It's an expanded version of legislation introduced by the lawmakers earlier this year and is expected to carry the same pricetag, about $1.5 billion.

The measure also adjusts the history for producers who have suffered calamities, because crop insurance policies are based on past yields and don't work where disasters have struck several years in a row.

It also creates a pilot project to study the feasibility of expanding federal crop insurance to livestock.

Those provisions are among more than two dozen in the bill, which is similar to provisions in a House measure sponsored by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest of Texas.