So much for the myth that farmers and rural businessmen are
the bedrock of honesty and that slum dwellers are cheats.
It turns out that crop insurance fraud rates are far higher
than food-stamp program cheating in the United States.
Democratic congressman Colin Peterson from
Minnesota says “there is five times as much fraud” in the federal crop
insurance program as there is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
“There is less fraud in food stamps than in
any government program,” Peterson told the National
Journal on April 10.
“There is five times as much fraud in crop
insurance than in food stamps.”
US. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also
commented recently.
“There’s also an
issue we’re taking very seriously on crop insurance – because the percentage of
error and fraud rate is higher in crop insurance than it is in SNAP,” Vilsack
said.
“Obviously those
programs are different in terms of size – but even if you reduce the error rate
in crop insurance, you’re talking about tens of millions, and potentially
hundreds of millions of dollars in savings as well.”
In the United
States, crop insurance is delivered via private insurance companies which are
heavily subsidized by the federal government.
In Canada, crop
insurance is either delivered directly by provincial governments or by
agencies, such as Agricorp in Ontario, that have been set up by the province.
