Excerpt from Report of the Manager of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, 1949

The need for crop insurance protection is as old as farming itself. Wherever men endeavor through the investment of their labor, money, and ingenuity to produce a harvest, there exists an element of risk that there may be no harvest. The uncertainty of the factors of weather, insect pests, and plant diseases has ever been present and too often has exacted a large share of the expected return from the farmers' efforts.

The interest in crop insurance as a means of eliminating the risk of financial loss in farming and softening the shock of the inevitable crop failures dates back several decades. However, at present all-risk crop insurance is available to farmers only through the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Under this venture farmers are working together to develop and perfect their own system of crop insurance protection through the use of the machinery provided by the Federal Government. As borne out in this report, the very essence, of success ful Operation of a crop insurance program is a high degree of local interest in efficient and businesslike handling of all phases of the program.

Started in 1939 with insurance offered on wheat over the entire Nation, the first venture of the United States Government into the field of all-risk crop insurance grew out of a keen recognition of the vital need for this kind of program in a sound system of agriculture. There was a frank realization of the enormity of the task ahead and at the same time a stubborn determination to work out a solution to the instability of farm economy due to crop losses. The experience during those first years was costly. Indemnities paid out were high, but experience gained became the foundation upon which to build the sounder and more conservative crop insurance program now in operation.

This report covers the second consecutive year of crop insurance operations, which shows the proper correlation between the kind of crop produced and the amount of losses paid. Losses should be lighter when crops are good; heavier when crops are poor. A careful review of this relationship in the insurance Operations for the past several years gives reason for optimism and further strengthens the existing confidence in the workability of all-risk crop insurance protection. Indeed, the over-all experience of recent years indicates that the much - needed goal of a sound system of crop insurance protection for all farmers throughout the Nation may be within sight.

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