ND Department of Agriculture Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MAY 8, 2008

JOHNSON ASKS FOR INSURANCE OPTION FOR MALTING BARLEY

BISMARCK – Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson has asked the federal crop insurance officials to make the malting barley endorsement available for barley revenue assurance (RA) policies in North Dakota.

“The malting barley endorsement for RA is available in our neighboring states of Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota, but has not yet been approved for North Dakota,” Johnson said. “Since RA insurance provides significantly better risk management than actual production history (APH) policies, North Dakota is at a competitive disadvantage with these other states for the production of malting barley.”

In a letter to Eldon Gould, Risk Management Agency administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Johnson said the malting barley industry will remain at competitive risk until its producers have access to risk management tools equal to other commodities.

“In the absence of adequate risk management options, producers will likely choose to raise other crops,” he said. “Since North Dakota leads in the production of malting barley, a major production shift away from malting barley here could have a detrimental effect on the entire industry.”

Johnson said RA insurance price guarantees more closely reflect actual commodity market values than APH policies.

“RA also provides protection against market price losses whereas APH is production-loss based,” he said.

North Dakota is the nation’s leading barley producing state, growing 37 percent of the nation’s supply.

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MEDIA: For more information, please call Ted Quanrud at (701) 328-2233 or tquanrud@nd.gov or Patrice Lahlum at (701) 239-7210 or plahlum@nd.gov.