USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) announced the agency is making permanent a new provision that allows producers to hay, graze or chop cover crops and still receive a full prevented planting payment.
To accommodate the different farming practices across the country, RMA is also increasing flexibility related to the prevented planting “1 in 4” requirement, as well as aligning crop insurance definitions with USDA’s National Organic Program.
“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. “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 2021 crop year was relatively limited for prevented planting, as USDA’s Farm Service Agency reports about 2.1 million acres were listed as prevented planting. Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and California reported the highest acreage of prevented planting.
Responding to drought in the northern Great Plains, RMA had announced in July that producers could hay, graze or chop cover crops and still receive 100 percent of their prevented planting payment. Previously, USDA had restricted haying and grazing until after Nov. 1, or producers would see their prevented planting payment reduced by 65 percent.
The 1 in 4 rule, put in place in 2020 nationally, required land to be planted, insured and harvested at least once in the last four crop years. Now, USDA is allowing some flexibility. Those include: growing of an insured perennial crop, such as alfalfa, red clover or mint, to be considered planted; allowing a crop covered by the Noninsured Crop Disaster Program to meet the insurability requirement; and allowing a producer to prove the acreage was planted and harvested in at least two consecutive years out of the four previous years to meet the insurability requirement. — Jerry Hagstrom, DTN political correspondent
