Contact:
Shirley Pugh (202) 690-0437
Brent Doane (202) 690-2092

PROPOSED “COMBO” INSURANCE POLICY OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

WASHINGTON, Jul 14, 2006 – USDA’s Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) today published for public comment notice in the Federal Register of its proposal to amend the Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Basic Provisions, as well as provisions for small grains, cotton, coarse grains, malting barley, rice, canola, and rapeseed.

This newly developed Combination “Combo” Policy would provide both revenue and yield protection for those crops, and incorporate changes resulting from recommendations by an RMA prevented planting work group

The amended provisions would replace the Crop Revenue Coverage, Income Protection, Indexed Income Protection, Actual Production History and Revenue Assurance plans of insurance. The amendments offer producers a choice of revenue protection (against loss of revenue caused by low prices, low yields or a combination of both) or yield protection (for production losses only) within the same Basic Provisions and applicable Crop Provisions.

RMA believes this will reduce paper and the amount of information producers must consider to determine the best risk management tool for their operations, and will improve prevented planting and other provisions to better meet the needs of insured producers. Changes will apply for 2009 and succeeding crop years.

The proposed rule (PDF) is available for public comment until Sep 12, 2006. All written comments received by that date will be considered when the rule is made final.

Further information about the Federal crop insurance program is available on the RMA Web site at http://www.rma.usda.gov.