WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2014 — USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) today announced that a premium subsidy has been established as part of the new Whole-Farm Revenue Protection insurance policy, in order to offer more affordable protection to diversified farms.
Whole-Farm Revenue Protection, required by the 2014 Farm Bill and offered through the federal crop insurance program, is intended to provide more affordable risk management coverage options to fruit and vegetable growers with diversified farms selling commodities to wholesale markets, local and regional markets, farm identity preserved markets, or direct markets.
The new policy offers a whole-farm premium subsidy to farms with two or more commodities as long as minimum diversification requirements are met. This will provide diversified farms a higher premium subsidy than previously available. Farms with only one commodity will continue to receive the standard subsidy rate used for basic units.
"Whole-Farm Revenue Protection insurance will expand options for specialty crop, organic and diversified crop producers, allowing them to insure all the crops at once instead of one commodity at a time,” said RMA Administrator Brandon Willis in a press release. “That gives them the option of promoting crop diversity and helps support the production of a wider variety of healthy foods.”
Whole-farm insurance allows farmers to insure all of the crops and livestock on their farm under one insurance policy rather than insuring each commodity separately. Coverage levels can range anywhere from 50 to 85 percent, depending on what producers feel is appropriate for their businesses.
The new Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Policy will be offered as a pilot program for the 2015 insurance year.
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