With the adoption of sustainable farming practices on the rise, more producers may be looking at how double or relay cropping fits into their operations. Sheila Backer, assistant vice president of underwriting at Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance, says it’s important to consider what those changes could mean for crop insurance.
“If you take a step back into what the policy looks like without double cropping or relay cropping, it basically says you can only insure and harvest one crop off a piece of ground,” Backer says.
But in an effort to make it easier for farmers to increase production and lower costs food costs, Backer explains the Biden Administration and USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) are working to make changes to this policy.
“RMA came out and said ‘There are quite a few areas where we can get two crops off of a singular piece of ground in that calendar year, so why can’t we make that insurable?’,” Backer says. “As people are starting to realize the importance of this and the impact that it can have, RMA is recognizing that as well and allowing it to be an insurable practice.”
Requirements For Approval
RMA has started offering written agreements for double and relay cropping, which is a way to insure something they haven’t officially made available yet.
“We can submit a written agreement and say ‘This borrower was able to show a history of doing this practice, so we think they should be insurable.’ If it’s approved by RMA, then it allows insurance to be bound,” Backer says.
The requirements for written agreements vary from county to county. For example, growers in a certain area may need provide up to three years of history of using the practice while others may be able to submit a blanket agreement with no history.
Since 2022, Backer says number of written agreement offers for relay cropping has increased by 15%. She adds if there are enough submitted, RMA may expand the program’s availability.
“I would encourage you, if you’re interested at all in this, to talk to your agent,” Backer says. “RMA uses all the written agreements they get every year to potentially make things insurable on their own.”
