It’s hard to believe we are just a month away from September and getting the itch to harvest our crops in the state of Iowa. As we get ever closer to the harvest, the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship reminds farmers that they will be starting the assessment of fees on grains sold to or deposited at Iowa-licensed grain facilities will start on September 1st. This is a pushback from the original intended starting date of July 1st.
This is not a new program; it has been on the books since 1986 to help protect producers from the event a grain terminal shuts down. In the past two years, they have seen three large failures that have drained the Indemnity Fund below $3 million.
Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig talks about the program.
Naig says that while there have been a few hiccups in the past couple of years, he doesn’t see any catastrophic trend happening.
The decision to reinstate the assessments was made in accordance with Iowa law by the Grain Indemnity Fund Board of Overseers. In the case of a failure of a state-licensed grain warehouse or grain dealer, the Fund will pay farmers 90 percent of a loss on grain up to a maximum of $300,000 per claimant.
