1. Home
2. Conferences
3. 2025 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference

RMA's Risk Management Education Programs

Sean Patrick

Summary

In late 2022, RMA launched the Crop Insurance Navigator program in partnership with University of Arkansas. The program was designed to strengthen outreach and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers through the development of a cohort of risk management program navigators – program specialists trained by project collaborators focusing on the southeastern U.S. Once trained, program navigators have been: 1)Strategically and intentionally engaging and serving producer influencers, land-grant faculty, agriculture colleges/universities, community-based organizations, non-government organizations across the crop insurance sector, 2) Strengthening and building new relationships across the crop insurance sector with public and private entities, and 3) Enhancing the understanding and use of federal crop insurance by producers historically underserved by crop insurance sector. Since September 2023, Navigators have reached nearly 2,500 producers, mostly in the Southeastern U.S.

Delivering risk management education to communities and producers often overlooked by traditional methods remains of the highest priority for RMA. Most recently, we have partnered with Cross Over Community Development (COCD) from Ohio whose project is focused on providing the tools and resources to immigrant and refugee farmers from diverse regions including Latin America, Central Europe, and Asia, which will enable them to produce and profit from the products they grow. Most small-scale immigrant farmers venture into farming with limited knowledge of agricultural risk management or food safety practices, such as Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). Also, growers often underestimate climate change and catastrophic weather-related events occurring with high frequency and severity, causing production losses. Education to address these gaps is paramount for future success. This project provides growers a series of 40 educational classes which address areas including, access to capital, technology, insurance, and marketing strategies. Cross Over Community Development determined 11 primary languages are crucial for the target immigrant community, and classes will use a Train the Trainer approach with bilingual peer educators and facilitators to ensure accessibility and understanding for all those who participate.

Our goal for the session will be to showcase both projects, highlighting the work that has been done to reach underserved and beginning producers, and how we plan to continue the efforts with both partners to reach and educate producers in order for them to become more successful. RMA’s goal would be to include individuals who are apart of each of the projects above to help tell their story and how they are making an impact to underserved producers.

Details

---