I started working for National Sorghum Producers as an intern in August 2011. I don’t know how long it was before I heard the compliant that crop insurance — while one of the most successful and effective federal policies in U.S. history — is a significant obstacle to irrigated sorghum production, but it couldn’t have been long.

Within a few months, I was doing comparisons between sorghum transitional yields and corn transitional yields. Transitional yields are also known as T-yields, and they serve as proxy yields for a farmer’s individual yield history when transitioning to a crop he or she has never grown before. Not surprisingly, sorghum is at a huge disadvantage in this area.