Completed Project Report

Training Underserved Arkansas and Mississippi Crop Farmers to Understand and Utilize Crop Insurance as a Risk Management Tool

  • Award Amount: $99,977
  • Regional Center: Southern Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2023 Producers Underserved by Crop Insurance Projects
  • Project Director: Hunter Biram
  • Email: hdbiram@uark.edu
  • Organization: University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

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Project Overview

This project aims to educate underserved producers on the fundamentals of the federal crop insurance program through four in-person workshops. The underserved audience we focus on includes retiring farmers and new and beginning farmers, and many producers in the project region of the Mississippi Delta fall into this audience. The audience emphasis includes the underserved audience plus traditional commercial producers. Half of the participants farmed fruits, vegetables, livestock, hay, and forage, and the other half farmed corn, soybeans, rice, and cotton. One quarter of the producers only farmed one or the other, while the remaining farmed a combination of the two types of agricultural products. We had a total of 112 project participants which included in-person workshop participants and authors of the curriculum developed for the workshops. Of the 112, 65 farmers participated in the in-person workshops. We had four primary proposed project outcomes consisting of developing a fact sheet library based on the fundamentals of federal crop insurance for a total of13 proposed fact sheets, posting the library through both academic institutions represented on the project, developing a decision tool for yield and revenue insurances, and organizing a series of crop insurance workshops. We were able to carry out all four of these proposed outcomes with only on modification -  some fact sheets were combined resulting in a library of 11 fact sheets. However, we fell short of our estimated number of participants as outlined in our Project Steps. This is largely due to a lack of realistic expectations when it comes to producer interest in crop insurance, and it is due to winter weather resulting in the cancellation of one of our larger events. Despite this, we were able to have fruitful conversations with farmers and develop a curriculum which is in the hands of over 500 people today.

Number of Participants: 112

Outcomes

Project Steps

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

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EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

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DELIVERY AREA

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