Julia Asherman is a first-generation farmer who owns and operates Rag & Frass Farm in Twiggs County. Rag & Frass produces beautiful vegetables, fruits and specialty flowers for customers throughout Middle and North Georgia. “I feel like farming is just very fulfilling,” says Julia, “I’ve always been a plant person.”
As an entrepreneur and small business owner, Julia wears all the hats in her company. She works nearly 365 days a year to make her farm profitable in the face of uncertainty from weather, pests and markets. Julia leverages available tools like farm insurance to help mitigate risk for her business, but she hasn’t been able to protect the most important part of her farm: herself.
For years, Julia had no affordable health insurance options. She wasn’t eligible for Georgia’s restrictive Medicaid program and didn’t earn enough money to qualify for financial help to buy health insurance on the marketplace. Her health premium would’ve been $500 a month, almost twice what she pays for her mortgage.
“I have a farm insurance policy that covers if a tornado takes down a greenhouse, and I have liability that covers if someone gets sick from something I produce,” Julia says, “but I don’t have anything protecting me.”
