USDA Risk Management Agency Updates Insurance Options

It’s time for your Southeast Regional Ag News. On the Ag Information Network, I’m Haylie Shipp.

Well a cool story in and of itself, a boots-on-the ground farmer from the State of South Dakota, Marcia Bunger is now also the Administrator of the USDA’s Risk Management Agency.

Recently I had a chance to talk to Administrator Bunger about her first year of service and she talked exclusively about a couple of insurance options that they have that they’ve now tweaked based on producer concerns.

We are going to talk about those today and tomorrow as well as a webinar that’s coming up to iron out some of these details starting with the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection policy…

“Whole Farm has been around for a while. The last several years we’ve seen a decline in that policy being purchased.”

She told me his is because they think the revenue limit was too low and also there was too much upfront paperwork.

“We’ve increased the limit by doubling it and the upfront paperwork process has been moved more soto the backside.”

So we’ve covered what’s changing, but who is the policy for?

“It’s geared toward that diversified operation where there is a number of commodities grown including livestock and it’s around revenue.”

There are two online workshops coming up in which they’ll discuss these changes in the programs. The first November 15 and the second December 13. Just head to the USDA RMA website for details: https://rma.usda.gov/Topics/Outreach-and-Education/RMA-Roadshow