Your individual average yield is recalculated every time you grow a crop using 90 per cent of your previous individual average yield and 10 per cent of your most recent annual yield. There is a one-year lag in this calculation.

If you do not grow a crop for one or more years, your previously established individual experience will be compared to the area to establish your current yields.

If you are a new customer or are insuring a crop for the first time, you can provide your own records to establish your individual yield. You also have the option of calculating with the Management Experience Transfer index to determine your yields. New customers with no records will establish their yields at the long-term average yield for that area.

If you are involved with a contract, involving one or more partners/family members, contact your customer service office. You may be eligible to transfer individual yields, experience discounts, etc.

Organic Option

If you are insuring crops under the organic option for the first time, individual coverage may be established a number of ways:

• If you have produced certified organic crops in the past, individual yields may be established using your production records.

• If you have previously insured the crop as conventional, your organic yield for this crop may be set as your conventional individual yield reduced by 15 to 50 per cent, depending on the crop and land use (summerfallow versus stubble).

• Your individual yield may be set using the crop’s organic area yield and your Management Experience Transfer index.

• If you are a new customer with no records, your individual organic yield will be set equal to the organic area yield for your region.

Organic area yields are set at conventional area yields reduced by 15 to 50 per cent, depending on the crop and land use (summerfallow versus stubble). There is no individual coverage for Khorasan wheat.

Yield trending recognizes continual advancement in the agriculture sector. With yield trending, long-term yields are increased to account for improved production techniques, varieties and technological advances. The result is an increase in yield coverage offered to producers where yields are increasing over time. This will also positively impact long-term yields for producers who have not previously insured these crops. For 2010, yield trending will continue to be applied to canola, identity-preserved canola, fall rye and winter wheat.

Yield cushioning provides greater protection and coverage to Saskatchewan producers by limiting the impact on individual coverage in poor crop years.

A yield cushioning program reduces the impact of a poor yield by limiting or “cushioning” the decrease in a producer’s yield coverage. Yield cushioning occurs by crop and land use.

When two low yields occur in consecutive years, the amount the coverage level drops will be cushioned in the second year. For this year, 2008 yields will be cushioned to 70 per cent of the customer’s Long Term Individual Yield.

Some conditions will apply. Customers with uninsured causes of loss, or who have a MET less than 0.85 and a surcharge of 15 per cent or more, are not eligible for yield cushioning.

The Management Experience Transfer (MET) index is used to establish a starting yield for a crop where no individual yield was previously established and more accurately reflects the individual customer’s farm management abilities.

Your MET index is greater than 1.0 if your yields are better than the area average; it is less than 1.0 if your yields are lower than the area average.

New customers with no previous yield history start with a MET index of 1.0.

Once your yields are established, they are updated using your individual annual production information as described under Individual Coverage.