Crop Insurance Update: Whole-Farm Revenue Insurance Revised to Allow Greater Access

Written by M. Sean High

On August 27, 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced changes to the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection insurance program.  These program revisions are designed to allow “beginning, organic, and fruit and vegetable growers’ better access [to] Whole-Farm Revenue Protection.”

The purpose of Whole-Farm Revenue Protection is to provide farmers and ranchers the ability “to insure all of the commodities on their farm at once instead of one commodity at a time.”  As a result of this program, many producers are now provided “access to a risk management safety net…that gives them the option of embracing more crop diversity on their farm.”

According to USDA, beginning farmers and ranchers are now granted increased access to Whole-Farm Revenue Protection through a reduction in the required records from five to three historical years.  Furthermore, a beginning farmer or rancher assuming at least 90 percent of a farm operation may now qualify for the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection program “by using the former farmer operator’s federal farm tax records.”

Additionally, USDA is attempting to provide Whole-Farm Revenue Protection to larger numbers of livestock producers by “remov[ing] the previous cap that limited participants to those who received 35 percent or less of their income from livestock production.” 

Finally, USDA is striving to provide greater program availability to expanding operations through an increase in “the cap on historical revenue for expanding operations to 35 percent from its previous 10 percent.”

More information regarding Whole-Farm Revenue can be found at USDA’s Risk Management Whole-Farm Webpage.    

Crop Insurance Update: Fruit and Nut Producers Granted Greater Crop Insurance Options

In a news release dated July 23, 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that the federal crop insurance program will be expanding to provide fruit and nut producers with greater coverage options.  According to USDA, under the new program, producers in select counties will now have the ability to purchase a Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) and the Actual Production History (APH) Yield Exclusion as part of their overall crop insurance coverage.

USDA stated that “SCO is an area-based policy endorsement that can be purchased to supplement an underlying crop insurance policy.  It covers a portion of losses not covered by the same crop’s underlying policy.” As a result of the new program expansion, “almonds, apples, blueberries, grapes, peaches, potatoes, prunes safflower, tomatoes, and walnuts” are eligible for SCO in select counties in 2016. 

USDA further asserted that “[t]he APH Yield Exclusion allows farmers, with qualifying crops in eligible counties, to exclude low yields in exceptionally bad years (such as a year in which a natural disaster or other extreme weather occurs) from their production history when calculating yields used to establish their crop insurance coverage.”  As a result of the announced change to the crop insurance program, “apples, blueberries, grapes, peaches, potatoes, prunes safflower, tomatoes, and walnuts.” will now be eligible for APH in select counties in 2016.

According to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, “[p]roviding these [crop insurance] options for our producers of fresh fruit and nuts gives them the stronger safety net they need to continue farming, even after particularly bad years.”

For additional information regarding crop insurance, please click here.

Written by M. Sean High - Staff Attorney

July 27, 2015

NGCA Announces Agriculture Disaster Assistance Program

On September 12, 2011, the National Corn Growers Association unveiled the Agriculture Disaster Assistance Program (ADAP), a commodity title proposal for the 2012 Farm Bill. The new program aims to provide a more effective and responsive insurance program for growers and would replace the existing Average Crop Revenue Election Program (ACRE). Unlike ACRE, ADAP uses harvest prices and crop reporting districts to set crop revenue guarantees and limits payments to 10 percent of guarantees based on a five-year Olympic average of revenue.

Click here to read the NCGA press release

Written by Andy Schwabenbauer, Research Fellow
September 20, 2011