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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Thursday, October 28, 2021
California has already surpassed $101 million in USDA crop insurance indemnities due to shortages of irrigation water supplies and the numbers will likely climb much higher.
Farmers across the Midwest, where soils are already saturated, could face more widespread flooding this spring as rivers swell and winter storms continue, forecasters say.
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.
Prevented planting insurance claims could easily set a record this year despite lower limits on coverage imposed by the Agriculture Department because of concerns that growers were being overpaid in the past.
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.
As farmers struggle to plant crops or take prevented planting options this growing season, they aren't the only ones hurting. Ag retailers fear millions in losses and leftover inventory.
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.
Calls for flexibility with the haying and grazing of cover crops on prevented planting acres have USDA exploring its options and lawmakers trying to make it easier for them to do so.
