RMA offers crop insurance flexibility in flood areas

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RMA offers crop insurance flexibility in flood areas

Farmers in 2019 flooded areas where broken or breached levees are only partly repaired are being offered flexibility with 2020 crop insurance premium rates under the USDA’s Risk Management Agency.

Ben Travlos with the Missouri Corn Growers Association, tells Brownfield Ag News farmers can submit a written agreement request, “So long as the farmer is working with their crop insurance agent through this blanket written agreement process, if there’s any levee repairs done prior to them actually getting a crop in the ground, then the land should be assessed accordingly, corresponding with the levels of risk that are now there with the levee repairs that were able to be done.”

Farmers will have to have those repairs certified – and if their levees are private – Travlos says the NRCS has stepped up to help, “NRCS actually provided instructions to their field offices to take and schedule requests for breached levee repair certification for levees that are not enrolled in the Corps program. So, if this scenario does sound familiar for a farmer they need to be sure to be working not only with their crop insurance agent but also with their local NRCS office.” Travlos says concerns were brought up during meetings in Northwest Missouri last week that farmers would not be able to afford third-party engineers, as required. There is a possibility of more spring flooding ahead of planting in Missouri. Two-hundred levee breaches occurred last year on more than 100 levee systems in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. 

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