Background

Section 522(c)(1) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (Act) allows the Risk Management Agency (RMA) to conduct activities or enter into contracts to carry out research and development for underserved agricultural commodities, including specialty crops. Section 522(c)(2)(B) of the Act requires RMA to consult with groups representing producers of the agricultural commodity that would be served by a policy that resulted from this research and development effort, prior to beginning any work, in order to determine the interest level or concerns of producers.

Background

On August 9, 2017 the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) Board of Directors approved a modification to the Peanut Revenue plan of insurance to allow the contract-based price to apply to revenue protection and revenue protection with the harvest price exclusion plans of insurance, an option previously only available for yield coverage.

Accordingly, the Peanut Revenue crop provisions, handbooks, and fact sheet have been updated to reflect this modification.

Background

The Risk Management Agency (RMA) has revised the Catastrophic Risk Protection Endorsement, the Area Risk Protection Insurance Regulations, and the Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Basic Provisions to incorporate changes made in a final rule with request for comments published in the Federal Register on November 24, 2017.

The Common Crop Insurance Policy Basic Provisions have also been revised to incorporate changes previously made in the Replant and Double Cropping Amendment (18-CCIP-Replant and Double Crop).

Organic Rice Factor

Additional Price Elections:

In accordance with section 3(e)(1) of the Basic Provisions, RMA is providing additional price elections for selected APH and SCO dry bean types and dry pea types with a March 15, 2018 SCD.

Background

As the result of concerns regarding the proper reporting of organic acreage in the Coastal Bend area of Texas, the Risk Management Agency (RMA) implemented the following changes to maintain the integrity and actuarial soundness of organic coverage in that region. These changes include:

Background

In accordance with Section 8 of the Rainfall and Vegetation Index Plan Common Policy Basic Provisions, final grid indices and payment calculation factors have been determined and approved for the following:

As of February 28, 2018 the following information is now available on the FTP site:

• 2018 Actuarial Data Master for the 6/30, 11/30, 2/28 Filing Date, YTD, and Daily Files.

Users can find this information in the following directories:

• 2018 Actuarial Data Master are in the References/Actuarial_Data_Master/2018 directory.

Additional notes and details regarding this data release:

Common Crop Insurance Policy & Area Risk Protection Insurance ^1,2

The 2017 CY harvest prices shown below are approved for the following plans of insurance: Revenue Protection, Area Revenue Protection, Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion and Area Revenue Protection – Harvest Price Exclusion. The harvest prices are applicable for the crops, practices, sales closing dates and states indicated in the following table.

Common Crop Insurance Policy & Area Risk Protection Insurance ¹

The 2017 CY harvest prices shown below are approved for the following plans of insurance: Revenue Protection, Area Revenue Protection, Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion and Area Revenue Protection – Harvest Price Exclusion. The harvest prices are applicable for the crops, types, practices, sales closing dates and states indicated in the following table.