After reading the June 20 Policy Pennings article, Moral hazard may inhibit crop insurance system, (Farm World, page 4) we felt it necessary to respond because it attempts to portray all farmers as trying to game the system for financial gain.

While bad examples can be found in all industries, our experience over 10-plus years working with hundreds of crop insurance customers in no way supports the examples used in this article.

First, the system has policies, procedures, audits and penalties (i.e. federal prison) that discourages these incidents, but most importantly the vast majority of farmers have a sense of fair play and honesty. For the article to suggest otherwise is just offensive to those of us who respect and cherish the farmer clients we work with every day.

We suspect the only moral hazards here are the authors who are only interested in highlighting obscure or unfounded examples that support their political view of the crop insurance system.

Ron Hassler                   Gerald Nickel

Crop Insurance Manager   President

Midwest Ag Finance          Midwest Ag Finance