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The latest buzz for beekeepers is crop insurance

2009-01-05 01:36:00
Author: BizWire

The buzz in the honeybee industry these days is about crop insurance — now available to beekeepers for the first time.

Some say the new program is expensive and amounts to betting on the weather. Others say it's better than having no protection at all.

"In general, we think it's great," said Troy Fore, executive director of the American Beekeeping Federation. "We've been trying to get this for years."

The federal Risk Management Agency's experimental apiculture program uses either a rainfall or vegetation index, depending on the particular area of the country. Whether beekeepers get a payment would depend on the amount of rainfall or the amount of greenness.

"We're not insuring the bees. We're not insuring the honey. We're not insuring the bees' health," said Shirley Pugh, spokeswoman for the Risk Management Agency, which is part of the U.S. Agriculture Department. "We're ensuring the conditions that the bees might require for expected (honey) production."

North Dakota beekeeper Will Nissen is skeptical. He would rather the government find a way to insure actual production, as it does for other crops.

"It's like going to Vegas," he said of the experimental program. "It's like a crapshoot on whether it's going to rain or not. It has nothing to do with the honey crop, and that's what we're all about — the honey crop."

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