Letter to Tom Vilsack, Secretary US Department of Agriculture - Select Cornell to Develop Digital Tools That Will Assist Farmers in Making Crop Insurance Coverage Decisions

Letter

Dear Secretary Vilsack:

I am pleased to write in support of the application submitted by New York's Cornell University to develop web based decision tools for managing risk and understanding the new crop insurance policies authorized in the 2014 Farm Bill. In partnership with the University of Rhode Island and the University of Maine, Cornell's Agricultural Risk Management and Policy Institute will develop and manage these vital decision-making tools for Northeastern Farmers as they begin to enroll in important crop insurance and risk management programs.

As you know, the 2014 Farm Bill included $100 million for the implementation of commodity support programs. Of that, the bill dedicates $3 million for online web tools to assist farmers when they are making decisions about the new farm risk management programs. It is especially important to note that the 2014 Farm bill includes an entirely new dairy support program that requires farmers to make considerably more individual and complex decisions when enrolling than in the previous Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) program. Cornell's unparalleled expertise in both dairy science and policy, in addition to their extensive cooperative extension program will offer invaluable resources to farmers to help them best navigate the new policies of the 2014 Farm Bill.

I am told that Cornell's proposal articulates a vision for a suite of web-based decision tools and resources built on a state-of-the art software platform for delivering user-friendly, robust, research-based decision tools and other relevant risk management information to serve agricultural producers in the Northeast and throughout the United States. This platform will utilize and integrate a variety of researchers, resources, and data sources by leveraging the wide variety of research and programming efforts throughout Cornell and the broader Northeast. Such a comprehensive institute offering and user-friendly web-based decision tool does not currently exist to serve Northeast agriculture. I applaud Cornell University for its foresight, and express strong support for their application.

Thank you for your consideration. For additional information, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington office.

Sincerely,

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