Farmers will be able to buy crop insurance polices for crops planted in spring 2015 that allow them to get higher yield coverage by excluding catastrophic losses when they calculate average production, the government said. “This implementation is sooner than we anticipated,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, because other parts of the 2014 farm law were completed earlier than expected.
The new policies “could also benefit corn and wheat growers in Kansas, Colorado, and Iowa — all of which figure prominently in the battle over control of the Senate in next month’s elections.,” said Politico.
Lawmakers have pressed USDA for months to implement the so-called actual proven history yield exclusion as an aid to growers with recent losses from severe weather. House Agriculture Committee chairman Frank Lucas, from the wheat and cattle state of Oklahoma, said he hoped USDA would make the APH yield exclusion available to winter wheat growers, who planted fields this fall for harvest in the spring. “It is the difference between having viable crop insurance for the coming year or not,” Lucas said of the APH adjustment.
The level of insurance coverage available to growers is based on yields in recent years. If there are bad years and poor yields, the level of coverage is reduced. With the ability to exclude years when yields are less than half of the 10-year average for a county, farmers can get higher coverage. But the premium for the coverage also will go up, said USDA officials.
“It’s an individual decision,” said Vilsack, whether to seek a higher coverage level or accept a policy with lower coverage and a lower premium. “I’m sure it is going to bring some relief” to growers in regions with weather losses.
The new policies will be available nationwide on corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, barley, canola, sunflowers, peanuts, and popcorn, said USDA. “Nearly three-fourths of all acres and liability in the federal crop insurance program will be covered under APH Yield Exclusion.” The Risk Management Agency, which oversees crop insurance, is to provide details in December.
When asked if the new policies wold be made available for the ongoing winter wheat crop, Vilsack said it was too late in the season to include the crop – “It’s just a fact of the calendar.” It wold be unduly disruptive to re-open crop insurance policies for winter wheat, he said.