A new sorghum silage crop insurance contract will be available to growers in some Kansas and Colorado counties for the 2005 crop year, a Kansas State University economist said.

Under the Silage Sorghum Pilot Program, sorghum grown for silage will be eligible for the program in the 2005-2008 crop years in 37 counties in Kansas and two in Colorado, said Art Barnaby, professor and risk management specialist with K-State Research and Extension.

The program was announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency (RMA) May 19.

"The number of acres planted to sorghum for silage is small, compared with sorghum acres planted for grain, but this will be a help to growers in areas that have been approved for the contract," Barnaby said.

Kansas, a perennial state leader in sorghum production, produced 560,000 tons of sorghum for silage and 131.1 million bushels of sorghum for grain last year. Overall, the United States produced 3.55 million tons of sorghum for silage and 411.2 million bushels of sorghum for grain in 2003.

Non-silage sorghum varieties will not be covered under the new program, Barnaby said.

Currently, grain sorghum grown for silage is not insurable, but corn grown for silage is insurable - as will be the case for grain sorghum silage, starting in 2005.

Producers will be able to buy coverage up to the 75 percent coverage level for the pilot program. The price election will be set at 80 percent of the corn silage price, obtained by using a newly-revised RMA corn silage methodology.

The agency will release final policy terms and conditions in early October 2004, at the beginning of the 2005 crop year for grain sorghum. The sales closing date for that crop year will be March 15, 2005.

The 37 eligible Kansas counties include Barton, Decatur, Ellis, Finney, Ford, Gove, Graham, Grant, Gray, Greeley, Hamilton, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearny, Lane, Logan, Meade, Morton, Ness, Norton, Osborne, Phillips, Rawlins, Rooks, Rush, Russell, Scott, Seward, Sheridan, Sherman, Smith, Stanton, Stevens, Thomas, Trego, Wallace, and Wichita.

The two Colorado counties that can participate in the pilot program are Baca and Prowers.

More information about crop insurance can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.agmanager.info/ . Click on "Crops" and then on "Crop Insurance and Risk."


K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus in Manhattan.