Micheal Clements, NAFB News Service

The Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency this week announced changes to Federal crop insurance prevented planting coverage. RMA will implement the changes for most spring crops with prevented planting coverage, next year, and for all crops with prevented planting coverage in 2022. The changes include expanding the “1 in 4” requirement nationwide. Currently, only producers in the Prairie Pothole National Priority Area are subject to the requirement, which requires producers to plant acreage in at least one of the four most recent crop years to be eligible for coverage on those acres. RMA made several modifications to existing policy and procedures to ensure prevented planting payments adequately reflect the crops the producer intended to plant. USDA also made changes to cover second-crop plantings following the failure of the first crop in a field. Finally, USDA will allow the use of an intended acreage report for the first two years for producers in a new county, where they have never produced the crop.