The Agriculture Department's Risk Management Agency is launching a new crop insurance program for controlled environment agriculture that will become available in the 2024 crop year.
In a press release Monday, RMA said the new Controlled Environment program will provide coverage for plants, cuttings seedlings and tissue culture grown in "fully enclosed controlled environments." The program would pay producers for losses when they are forced to destroy plants due to diseases under a federal or state destruction order.
Risk Management Agency administrator Marcia Bunger said in the release that the new program would provide new options to urban, specialty crop and organic producers that grow in controlled environment facilities.
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"Controlled environment agriculture is a quickly growing sector in the nation’s food production, and this new option is part of USDA’s broader effort to support urban agriculture and new and better markets for American producers,” Bunger said in the release.
The insurance program would be a "dollar plan of insurance," which the press release says "bases the insured’s guarantee on inventory values reported by the producer." The program would provide insurance to plant categories currently not available in other nursery insurance programs, the press release said.
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