Crop Insurance Update: Pennsylvania Sales Closing Date for Forage Production Nears

Written by M. Sean high—Staff Attorney

In August 2016, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) Raleigh Regional Office—Raleigh, NC issued a revised Forage Production crop insurance fact sheet for Pennsylvania for the 2017 crop year.

According to RMA, crop insurance for forage production “[c]overage begins on October 16, 2016, for acreage seeded during the fall of 2015 and on May 22, 2017, for acreage seeded during the spring of 2016, if there is an adequate stand as of those dates.” Additionally, RMA stated “[i]nsurance ends with the earliest occurrence of one of the following:

• Total destruction of the crop;
•  Removal from the windrow or the field for each cutting;
• Final adjustment of a loss;
• Abandonment of the crop;
• The date grazing begins on the insured crop; or
• October 15.” 

The sales closing date for forage production crop insurance in Pennsylvania is September 30, 2016. 

Actuarial information regarding insurable counties is available for viewing on RMA’s website at http://webapp.rma.usda.gov/apps/actuarialinformationbrowser/. A listing of crop insurance agents is also available on RMA’s website at http://www.rma.usda.gov/tools/agent.html. 

Finally, the sales closing date for forage production Area Risk Protection Insurance (ARPI) (which “provides coverage based on the experience of an entire area, generally a county”) is September 30, 2016.  According to RMA, ARPI replaces the Group Risk Plan and the Group Risk Income Protection Plan and “provides for more flexibility in the data source used for establishing yields and requires production reporting requirements for producers enrolled in area-based plans, which will improve accuracy and allow the program to be offered in more areas.”