USDA’s Risk Management Agency is expanding its whole-farm revenue protection plan with the goal of garnering more participation from aquaculture and organic producers.
“These improvements to the Whole Farm Revenue Protection program will make it a better risk management tool for producers,” RMA Acting Administrator Richard Flournoy said. “USDA is committed to equity in program delivery, and this includes specialty crop, organic, and aquaculture producers, who will benefit from these enhancements to WFRP.”
WFRP “provides a risk management safety net for all commodities on the farm under one insurance policy and is available in all counties nationwide,” RMA said. In 2020, producers bought more than 2,000 policies to protect $2.26 billion in liabilities.
The changes, according to RMA, include an increase in expansion limits for organic producers to the higher of $500,000 or 35%. “Previously, small and medium-size organic operations were held to the same 35% limit to expansion as conventional practice producers,” RMA said.
In addition, more aquaculture producers will be able to participate in the program because RMA is raising the insurance limit for them to $8.5 million from the previous cap of $2 million of expected revenue.
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RMA said other changes include:
- “Allowing a producer to report acreage as certified organic, or as acreage in transition to organic, when the producer has requested an organic certification by the acreage reporting date. This allows organic producers more flexibility when reporting certified acreage.
- “Providing flexibility to report a partial yield history for producers lacking records by inserting zero yields for missing years. Previously, missing a year of records would cause the commodity’s expected value to be zero, meaning past revenue from the commodity would contribute nothing to the insurance guarantee.”
WFRP “is tailored for any farm with up to $8.5 million in insured revenue, including farms with specialty or organic commodities (both crops and livestock), or those marketing to local, regional, farm-identity preserved, specialty, or direct markets,” RMA said.
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