Farm leader: Crop insurance industry needs black agents
February 28, 2013 | 08:59 PM
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The crop insurance industry needs black insurance agents in order to convince more black farmers to participate in the crop insurance program, a farm leader told the Crop Insurance Industry Convention here earlier this month.
Bill Bridgeforth
“Last year I met my first black crop insurance agent. I’ve never met a black adjuster,” said Bill Bridgeforth, a senior partner in Darden Bridgeforth & Sons, a family-owned farming business based in Tanner, Ala.
Bridgeforth told industry insurance executives that while he has used crop insurance every year since 1980, other black farmers still need to be educated about its benefits, and he signaled that black agents should deliver that message.
If the industry is looking for agents, Bridgeforth said, “call me and we'll provide a list of qualified personnel.”
He said his family has been in row cropping for more than 100 years and today tends approximately 10,000 acres of cotton, corn, soybean, wheat and canola.
Bridgeforth is the chairman of the National Black Growers Council, a new Washington-based organization that has been formed to represent the needs of full-time black farmers.
In an interview, he said that he has no statistics on the participation rate of black farmers in the crop insurance program, but that production histories on black-owned farms show lower yields because black farmers for many years did not get the same level of technical services from the Agriculture Department as white farmers.
“Last year I met my first black crop insurance agent. I’ve never met a black adjuster,” said Bill Bridgeforth, a senior partner in Darden Bridgeforth & Sons, a family-owned farming business based in Tanner, Ala.
Bridgeforth told industry insurance executives that while he has used crop insurance every year since 1980, other black farmers still need to be educated about its benefits, and he signaled that black agents should deliver that message.
If the industry is looking for agents, Bridgeforth said, “call me and we'll provide a list of qualified personnel.”
He said his family has been in row cropping for more than 100 years and today tends approximately 10,000 acres of cotton, corn, soybean, wheat and canola.
Bridgeforth is the chairman of the National Black Growers Council, a new Washington-based organization that has been formed to represent the needs of full-time black farmers.
In an interview, he said that he has no statistics on the participation rate of black farmers in the crop insurance program, but that production histories on black-owned farms show lower yields because black farmers for many years did not get the same level of technical services from the Agriculture Department as white farmers.
