Bill Northey, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) undersecretary for farm production and conservation, and Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig last week urged Iowa farmers whose cornfields were severely damaged by the derecho to keep in close contact with their crop in­surance agents and adjusters to make certain the crop is still worth harvesting. 

“If you determine after trying to harvest that it’s not harvestable, it may still need to be zeroed out,” Northey said during a meeting with farmers at the Heartland Co-op location in the eastern Tama County town of Elberon, an...