Farm4Profit Podcast
How Farmers Are Stacking Crop Insurance, FSA, and Disaster Aid for 2026
26 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What financial challenges are farmers facing in 2026?
Hey, Corey, remember that time you tried to get me to eat alligator? Yeah, at Buzzard Billy's in Des Moines. Yeah, that's right.
That's where it was. It's a great place to go, especially if you're going to be at the Casey Center or the Iowa Events Center or one of these farm shows, trade shows that are hitting up Des Moines because it's just right across the street.
Yeah, we know we've got a lot of listeners that are probably going to one of the farm shows or maybe even, heck, state wrestling, state basketball, all the events that are going on down there, even Whitetail Classic.
Great cocktails. Yeah, I was going to say one of the best burgers. You never miss when you go to Buzzard Billy's. Walk across the street and let them know that Farm for Profits is here.
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From a loss standpoint, there's some changes going forward for 2026 where it's going to include if you have prevent plant, your multi-parallel losses, and these area plans, all those together, if you get above a $200,000 loss with the combination of any of those components, you are under review. And precision is the easiest way to have good records for that proving up your historical items.
You know, being an insurance employee and buying from the company I work for, I'm in an audit at any time. Quite honestly, I don't even know the audits happen because it's all done behind the scenes. And that, you know, we put everything through a grain cart scale. So we post calibrate the combine to make sure it's as tight as possible.
Heck, I measure everything out of the bend, and I'm always within a point to point and a half after it's had the bend fans run on it for weeks after it's went in too. So I can't stress enough the importance of looking at precision if you're not doing it today, especially as farms get larger. These large operations, and bends aren't getting any smaller.
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Chapter 2: How do crop insurance, FSA programs, and disaster aid work together?
We like to collect stuff. You're not going to throw an old email address away. It's treasured. One of these days, we'll open that up after not checking it for a month and be like, oh, shoot. That was Joe Rogan. He wants to be on the podcast.
And you can always interact with us on our text line, 515-207-9640. You can actually call it, too, and leave a voicemail. I still beg Tanner to play some. Never does. I need to be better prepared.
But if you leave a good enough one, it will be played, I'm sure. Yes, and we do have good ones. I just need to have them clipped out. You could do a whole show of reacting to those. Okay.
Do the most ridiculous post-match.
That would be terrible.
That would be a really boring show. Or a question and answer. You could call and leave a question for us and we would answer it.
We'd listen to you ask it and then answer it. I'm sure you'll have questions on this episode, so let's get our guest entered today.
introduced today we are talking to ken ripley he's the assistant vice president of region sales regional sales for farmer mutual hail up there in the northwest region we were talking a lot in minnesota before we turned these mics on and i want to let everybody know so there's no confusion it's ken like the barbie doll and ripley like believe it or not Yeah.
I was not saying it right to start with, and that's an easy name.
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Chapter 3: What are the recent changes under USDA and RMA leadership?
Annual forage is another one that's out there. They're all tied to this rainfall index type of baseline. Exciting product. Not our biggest volume as a company, but it's definitely a very large volume product from a national standpoint.
I really like him because we threw him a curveball right out of the gate. Yeah.
It was not on the paper.
It was not on the paper. Nope. He's definitely good for it and in to help us out. So let's learn more about your professional history. We mentioned that you were at John Deere. How's that trajectory kind of been?
Yeah, so kind of unique. I started on the equipment side of John Deere, so that's why I've got a bunch of toys just like this at home. And about halfway through my John Deere career, I switched over to the credit side of John Deere, which got me into John Deere Credit, and then... Next thing you know, I have one of my teammates call me and say, hey, this crop insurance gig is pretty good.
Do you need to look at this crop insurance side? So long and short of it, I got into John Deere Crop Insurance in 2008. And then in 2015, Farmers Mutual Hale acquired John Deere Crop Insurance. And it's just been a great life ever since. You came with it. I came with it, and I'm so glad I did. Farmers Mutual has been so good to us. They're just such a great company, family-run.
You don't miss John Deere on some of this new technology and autonomy and all that?
Oh, I still, yeah. I never got all of the demo stuff on the farm. I've got a brother-in-law that still works for the company, so I get all the inside stuff there too. But it's exciting. It's exciting. So, yeah, that's my career. Farm and crop insurance is all that keeps me busy besides family. Okay, okay.
Yeah, crop insurance business is probably cyclical, and it seems to be cyclical opposite of when you're busy on the farm.
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Chapter 4: What are the key updates to ARC/PLC and their implications?
It is, we gain new floors. That's put more light back on PLC, the price loss coverage. So that plan is truly a price floor. We have to fall below that price to get any payment, right? And then you'd be paid on 85% of your base acres times this price, whatever your bushel shortfall is.
And that Olympic average, Corey, is they throw out the high and they throw out the low. Yes. And take the three middle years. Of the five years.
Of the five. Which your other one would be 10 years.
Of your APH. Yeah. Crop insurance. We're changing the rules here. Yep. Crop insurance, we deal in tens. Now we're in the Olympics. They deal in fives. Yeah. So that gave that floor a much better thing.
And as a result, that also helps the ARC offering at FSA as well because that is now the new floor in the Olympic prices for the five-year look back on actual cash prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and any program crop. So those numbers have gone up as well. Corn is now $5.03 for corn and $12.17 for beans. So those are some really nice safety net prices on those products.
So dumb it down for me. Give me an example of why a farmer or what type of farm would pick PLC or what type of farm would pick ARC.
Yeah. I mean, it's a choice, right? It's definitely a choice, and it's a choice we're going to have to make again for this next year. The nice thing about 25 is because they changed the rules on us midstream. Whatever we elected back last spring doesn't matter. They're going to give us the better of the two paying based on the county.
Oh. So if PLC is better— So it doesn't matter if you screwed up last spring without the right choice.
Yep. They changed the rules. So our legislation said, hey, that's not fair. We're going to let you have the best of the two.
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Chapter 5: How do new area coverage options like ECO and SCO benefit farmers?
Yeah, sometimes it starts coming out the bends.
That's embarrassing.
That's called max capacity.
You're very efficient. That's called social media content.
That's right. That's right. Yep. It takes a long time to get those cored.
Yes. Got that right. Yes. What did we miss?
You know, it's been a great discussion. You know, the reality is the big changes for 2026 are going to be this premium support increases. Trying to decide what you want to do at FSA with the ARC or PLC. Again, that's always like it is every year. It's a big decision for growers. And I guarantee you that, you know, they're many times reaching out to their crop agents for that help.
And there's usually tools there to help with those decisions. But I want to just stress, because this really helps out the agents when they're working with producers, is we probably have bought a lot of our inputs already. Come in with what you know your cost of production is. If we don't have that in play, it just makes buying the right decision package harder.
Agents may have some estimates from whether it's Iowa State or whoever state you're in that help, but it's way better to know because I guarantee my cost of production, Corey's and Tanner's is not going to be the same, right? They're all different. But why base your insurance based on somebody else's cost of production versus your own?
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