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U.S. Ag Department Improving Crop Insurance Options for Small and Diversified Farmers

Friday, September 8th, 2023 -- 8:01 AM

(Wisconsin Ag Connection) The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it is improving crop insurance options for small and diversified farmers through improvements to the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WRFP) and Micro Farm insurance plans.

According to the Wisconsin Ag Connection, these updates are part of USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) efforts to increase participation and access to crop insurance.

“The improvements to Whole Farm Revenue Protection and Micro Farm policies are a direct response from feedback we’ve received from producers” said RMA Administrator Marcia Bunger. “These are two of the most comprehensive risk management plans available, and they are especially important to specialty crop, organic, urban, and direct-market producers.”

Improvements to WFRP for the 2024 policy year include:

  • Allowing all eligible producers to qualify for 80% and 85% coverage levels;
  • Allowing producers to purchase catastrophic coverage level policies for individual crops with WFRP;
  • Expanding yield history to a 10-year maximum (from 4 years) for all crops not covered by another federal crop insurance policy;
  • Making the policy more affordable for single commodity producers;
  • Allowing producers to customize their coverage by choosing whether WFRP will consider other federal crop insurance policies as primary insurance when calculating premium and revenue to count during claim time.

Improvements to Micro Farm for the 2024 policy year include:

  • Moving the sales closing date to a less busy time of year to help agents dedicate time to marketing the program. This is important specifically for producers that are purchasing Micro Farm for the first time as it provides additional time for agents to assist growers with important risk management decisions;
  • Allowing producers to purchase other Federal crop insurance with Micro Farm;
  • Allowing vertically integrated entities to be eligible for Micro Farm;
  • Making the Expanding Operations feature available with Micro Farm.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.