Among new programs such as coverage for gopher damage, Saskatchewan Crop Insurance will also “substantially” raise its insured prices for 2008, by almost 50 per cent per acre on average.
“Our dollar coverage is increasing from a provincial average of $86 per acre in 2007 to $128 per acre in 2008,” provincial Agriculture Minister Bob Bjornerud said in a news release Friday.
The premiums that farmers pay for each dollar of coverage will drop four per cent, the agency said, but premiums paid by farmers overall are expected to rise “marginally” due to the expected 46 per cent increase in the value of the 2008 crop.
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The province said it will commit an extra $25 million to cover its 60 per cent share of the increased premium costs.
On top of its yield-loss coverage, Crop Insurance’s multi-peril program for 2008 will include coverage for establishment, unseeded acreage and gopher damage. The gopher coverage expands provincewide this year after a pilot program in 2007.
Also new for 2008 is an alfalfa seed yield-loss insurance program that’s based on a producer’s individual experience with alfalfa seed production, rather than on area average yields. This change “will better reflect the production average of each individual farm,” the province said.
Crop Insurance will also roll out a new Enhanced Irrigation pilot program that allows a separate production guarantee for irrigated and dryland acres of the same crop.
In other words, a farmer using irrigation under this pilot program would then be protected against losses on irrigation without being impacted by production of the same crop on dryland acres, and vice versa.
Among other new features for 2008, the province said it will extend its wild rice insurance pilot program for 2008. Wild rice producers collected about $182,000 in insurance payments during the pilot program’s first year in 2007.
The deadline for Saskatchewan farmers to apply for, change or cancel their 2008 crop insurance contracts is March 31.
The government also noted that it will launch a full review of the Crop Insurance program in the “very near future,” as per a promise in the governing Saskatchewan Party’s election platform. The results of the review will be considered in the development of the 2009 Crop Insurance program, the province said in its release.
