USDA’s Risk Management Agency has issued a clarification of an earlier press release to make clear that farmers will receive a 15% top-up payment on prevented planting indemnities this year if their insurance policies had the Harvest Price Option.

The Agriculture Department will provide larger disaster-aid payments for losses in 2018 than for 2019 and will offer prevent-plant bonus payments of up to 15% for farmers who were unable to seed crops this spring due to the heavy Midwest flooding, according to rules announced Monday.

Agriculture Department officials expect farmers to file more than $1 billion in insurance claims for acreage they were unable to plant due to the succession of storms across the Midwest and Mississippi River valley this spring.

USDA’s Risk Management Agency will permit growers who plant cover crops on prevented planting acres to access that forage two months earlier than previously allowed.

President Donald Trump heads to Iowa this week to shore up his rural base and promote the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, fresh from dropping a threat to impose new tariffs that farm groups and lawmakers feared could jeopardize congressional approval of the North American trade pact.

The House on Monday finally cleared a $19.1 billion disaster aid package that will benefit farmers and communities who suffered from a series of natural disasters stretching back nine months.