The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) recently updated crop insurance to ensure producers who dispose of cover crops before Nov. 1 can still receive a full prevented planting payment.
The RMA said producers can hay, graze, or chop cover crops for silage, haylage, or baleage at any time and still receive 100% of the prevented planting payment, a USDA press release said. Originally, farmers who removed cover crops before Nov. 1 would only receive 65% of the payment.
“We are responsive to the needs of producers, and we are updating several key policies to encourage the use of cover crops and other conservation practices,” RMA Administrator Marcia Bunger said in the release. “We want to provide producers tools to help mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as ensure crop insurance works well for a wide variety of producers, including organic producers.”
The USDA is updating crop insurance to respond to the needs of agricultural producers as well as to support the conservation of natural resources, the release said.
“RMA added this flexibility starting with the 2021 crop year as part of a broader effort to encourage producers to use cover crops, an important conservation and good farming practice,” the release said. “Cover crops are especially important on fields prevented from being planted because they cover ground that would otherwise be left bare, which helps reduce soil erosion, boost soil health and increase soil carbon sequestration.”
RMA also aligned crop insurance organic definitions with USDA’s National Organic Program, the release said. This is to provide consistency and limit confusion when USDA programs that aid organic farmers are initiated.
Also updated in the RMA is the classification of “earlage and snaplage as an acceptable method of harvest for coarse grains,” the release said.
“By recognizing earlage and snaplage, we are providing confidence to producers that their crop is covered when a disaster changes their planned harvest method or if they choose to harvest in a manner other than reported on their acreage report,” Bunger said in the release.
