Chris Cogburn - Sustainable Crop Ins (Page 6)

Chris Cogburn

Chris Cogburn is the manager of Sustainable Crop Insurance Services, LP (SCIS) and has been with SCIS since its founding in 2006. Chris previously served as the Strategic Business Director for the National Sorghum Producers from 2006 – 2015, where he worked on farm policy as well as regulatory matters. He developed the farm level models used by NSP for decision making during work on the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills. Crop insurance is a key part of the 2014 Farm Bill and his knowledge of its interaction with farm policy remains critical and is beneficial to SCIS clients.

Chris's regulatory work includes projects with the Farm Service Agency (FSA), Risk Management Agency (RMA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He worked with FSA on the 2008 Farm Bill’s implementation of SURE and its treatment of “ghost crop” sorghum behind failed cotton and wheat. His RMA work has included the implementation of the sorghum crop insurance election methodology in the 2008 Farm Bill as well as SCO implementation in the 2014 Farm Bill. Chris also worked with RMA in expanding the silage sorghum pilot to include Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico; he is currently working on the expansion of the annual forage program. He has also worked with RMA regional offices in Oklahoma City, Topeka, Raleigh, and Valdosta on grain sorghum planting dates. Chris’ EPA regulatory work has included reregistration of propazine as well as renewable fuels pathways for grain sorghum and biomass sorghum.

Chris is a summa cum laude graduate of Texas Tech University where he received a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural and Applied Economics. Chris has farmed in the Happy and Dumas, Texas, areas and is married to Amy. They have two sons, Tucker and Logan.

Something to Watch

One of the projects we were working on this summer was our videos talking about SCIS and who we are. »

Knowing the numbers puts money in the bank

Last month we covered some cost-tracking basics. This can be a boring topic, but knowing your costs can be extremely important in today’s low-price environment. First off, putting sorghum in the ground is easy on the pocketbook. The price of a »

Tracking costs is vital to marketing

We’ve covered a lot of ground since my first column. I’ve written about forage sorghum, biomass sorghum for cellulosic ethanol production, the new Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) and active marketing. Each of these represents an opportunity to profit from some »

Start with good risk plan, adjust it when necessary

One of my clients started growing oat hay in 2011. It has been interesting to see how this has worked for him. Most interestingly, this year I’ve noticed there’s truth in the Ag Economics 101 axiom: marginal revenue equals marginal »

Renewable Fuel Standard matters to sorghum growers

Alcohol. One of the most controversial liquids in history. It’s so controversial there was actually a constitutional amendment enacted to ban it. Then there was a constitutional amendment enacted to make it legal again. Incidentally, these amendments also effectively destroyed and »

Taking sorghum to the next level

I was at an ethanol conference a couple of years ago, and one of the presentations included a picture of the fermenters in Gulf Oil’s cellulosic ethanol pilot plant. This seemed odd, as I didn’t think Gulf Oil had been »