Case Study – Lindy Savelle

Lindy Savelle, owner of JoNina Farms in Southwest Georgia, has a diverse operation. JoNina Farms is an agritourism destination, a nursery, a citrus orchard, and a perennial peanut hay operation. Lindy says, “When I retired, my husband and I moved back to this farm, JoNina Farms, and we tried to figure out what we were going to grow. We decided we were going to grow citrus and perennial peanut hay.”

Risk is an important consideration for Lindy. She says, “I don’t want any risk. But obviously that’s not realistic. So, I want to be sure to cover … our farm and any liability issues.” She continues, “Also, just in the event that mother nature isn’t in our favor that year, we want to be able to come out a little ahead or at least even.”

For her dryland perennial peanut haying operation, low rainfall can reduce production. Her production is custom harvested through a local producer that also purchases the hay. Lower production can impact her revenue that she receives from this crop.

Lindy uses Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage (PRF) insurance to help manage the risk from low rainfall that may impact her perennial peanut hay production. PRF insurance is a tool that indemnifies producers for low rainfall in their area (i.e., their “grid”). When rainfall is below the chosen coverage level during a chosen interval, the producer is paid according to their policy choices.

Lindy learned of PRF insurance through her current crop insurance agent that had been their crop insurance agent for other policies that cover her nursery. “He was here one day we were talking, going over our nursery policy, and he explained, how PRF works. We engaged immediately and decided to go with a policy to protect, our perennial peanut,” she shares.

Lindy also shares how she came to decide on the different policy options available in PRF insurance, “How we figured out what to select as far as options was we sat down with our insurance agent and just talked about cost versus the risk versus … what the end result might be.” In that decision, she reviewed those tradeoffs, “is it worth it to go for more or less… We just sat down and looked at the cost of it versus what the payout would be if we [received an indemnity].”

Lindy also considers her risk preferences, “Some people, you know, don’t mind a lot of high risk. And we’re kind of in the middle.” Finally, Lindy sees her insurance agent as an important information source when making PRF decisions, too: “We rely on our insurance agent to provide us more of an expert opinion on some of this because he sees it from a broader upper level view versus us just strictly here on our farm.”

For Lindy, the financial benefits of PRF insurance are helpful. She says, “We’ve been very fortunate with perennial peanut that each year we’ve had some production. When you don’t get rain, you’re not going to get as much. So, that PRF coverage of that indemnity, helps make up that difference.” She adds that her indemnity payments have covered her cost. From her perspective, “It just makes total economic sense that you would engage in a policy like that.”

While the financial implications are important, other considerations also make PRF insurance an attractive tool to Lindy. “PRF insurance has helped us accomplish the goals for this operation by giving us the security of having insurance on a situation in a field of planted perennial peanut where you can’t control mother nature.” Lindy says it has broader impacts, too, “It gives you a level of security that as a farmer, you need every bit of. Confidence backing you up…”