Record prevent plant levels in back-to-back years

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Record prevent plant levels in back-to-back years

An agricultural economist says 2020 was a record year for prevent plant acres, second only to last year since 2007.

David Widmar with Ag Economic Insights tells Brownfield the high number of prevent plant acreage tells a story.

“The prevent plant story is the summation of all the struggles that producers had as they were trying to get their planting done this year,” he said. “What we can tell is producers had a pretty tough spring to get the crops planted.”

Widmar said many farmers had to rely on crop insurance to meet their financial needs and says that it’s an important tool to manage spring-time planting risk…

“Looking ahead, producers are going to need to think about what are the prevent plant coverage options, how much coverage does that provide and really need to roll up their sleeves and understand that spring-time planting risk and how it impacts their overall farm production when they have to rely on management tool,” he said.

Widmar said there is an estimated 10 million acres in prevent plant this year compared to an average of nearly 6 million since 2007.

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