Background

Due to the recent severe flooding and excessive precipitation that is occurring at historic levels, the Risk Management Agency (RMA) has received requests to allow additional time for policyholders to submit acreage reports for spring-seeded crops. Concerns have been expressed that many policyholders may not be able to comply with the current acreage reporting dates due to difficulties to properly determine and report the insured amount of acreage planted or prevented from planting due to damage to transportation infrastructure, homes and businesses.

Background

The Risk Management Agency (RMA) has been advised that some processing tomato policy holders in California are at risk of losing coverage for their 2019 crop. Due to market conditions, price negotiations have been extended and a final price has not been set. It is estimated that a significant percentage of policy holders in California do not yet have a final contract price. In addition, on May 19, 2019, a severe hail storm in Fresno County caused extensive damage to thousands of acres of processing tomatoes.

Background 

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board of Directors (Board) approved procedures at the November 2016 Board meeting that they will use to determine the ‘reasonableness’ of requests for: (1) advance payments; (2) reimbursement of research and development costs; (3) reimbursement of maintenance costs; and (4) approval of user fees submitted to the Board.

Background 

Severe freeze events in the Southeastern United States on March 15-16, 2017, have resulted in significant and varying crop damage, particularly for blueberry and peach growers in Georgia and South Carolina. Some reports indicate the freeze event may have damaged 80 percent of the blueberry crop in Southern Georgia and 85 to 90 percent of early and midseason peach varieties in both states. Crops that advanced early, due to an unusually warm January and February, were damaged by the March freeze.

Background

The Risk Management Agency (RMA) has received questions regarding the impact to crop insurance policies when the Farm Service Agency (FSA) divides tracts and associated common land units (CLUs) located in multiple counties into their physical county location.

As of July 01, 2019 the following information is now available on the FTP site:

• 2019 Actuarial Data Master for the 6/30, 11/30 Filing Date, YTD, and Daily Files.

Users can find this information in the following directories:

• 2019 Actuarial Data Master are in the References/Actuarial_Data_Master/2019 directory.

Additional notes and details regarding this data release:

2019 ADM Price updated for the harvest price announcement, PM-19-038, 6/30 and 11/30 filings.

Common Crop Insurance Policy & Area Risk Protection Insurance ¹

The 2019 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 with the Harvest Price Exclusion. The harvest prices are applicable for the crops, sales closing dates, states, practices and types indicated in the following table.

Background

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) 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 the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (“2018 Farm Bill”). A Final Rule published in the Federal Register on June 28, 2019.

This rule revises the provisions regarding the:

The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) mandated changes to the treatment of cover crops for insurance purposes. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) has worked with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to develop new Guidelines (previously referred to as NRCS Termination Guidelines) and policy provisions to comply with the 2018 Farm Bill changes.

For crops planted following a cover crop in the 2020 crop year and later: