RMA Announces Changes to Its Crop Insurance Policy

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) today announced changes to its crop insurance policies. Major changes for 2018 focus on conservation compliance certification and choice of unit structure based on the risk management needs of producers.

“Every producer’s situation is unique. At RMA we want to ensure the policies we provide are flexible enough so that producers are getting the most effective and efficient coverage. Ensuring producers have the right coverage helps to strengthen the farm safety net,” said RMA Acting Administrator Heather Manzano.

To offer producers increased flexibility, RMA has removed the June 1 certification deadline date from the conservation compliance provisions and will instead refer to the premium billing date. This will allow the conservation compliance certification process for crop insurance to be administered more consistently with the way it is administered for other USDA programs. RMA is also increasing the flexibility of its services by allowing a policyholder to select different unit structures by practice for either irrigated or non-irrigated practices. Policyholders may now choose an enterprise unit for one practice and the most appropriate unit structure on the other practice, be it a separate enterprise unit or optional or basic units. These changes reduce the burden placed on producers and makes crop insurance more accessible.

RMA worked closely with its stakeholders to identify the changes, which were published Nov. 24 in the Federal Register.

Learn more about crop insurance and the modern farm safety net at https://www.rma.usda.gov.