were not serviced well. Congress and the crop insurance industry addressed those problems in the late ‘90s with the enactment of new authorities and new funding to make policies more affordable and serviceable. the hard work paid off, and the results
ever since have been staggering. today, nearly 2 million policies are written annually, and the government was able to parlay a $6.4 billion investment last year into more than $80 billion worth of protection for growers—a spread that will be even greater this year. For potato growers alone, we have
gone from covering just 250,000 acres and roughly $150 million in liability in 1989 to approximately 900,000 acres with more than $1 billion in total risk protection in 2009. but recent budget cuts mark a major step backward, and any additional adjustments will surely set the farming industry back decades.
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