USDA is offering Whole-Farm Revenue Protection beginning with the 2020 crop for hemp grown for fiber, flower, or seeds.
USDA’s Risk Management Agency Administrator Martin Barbre says “It’s going to have a national price level.
We’re going to have T yields, that’s what we are go on to start with.
I guess, if produce have two-to-three yields, if they’ve grown under the 2014 farm bill, they may have some more records that may help them get a better yield.
But, everyone will have T yields available.
One of the things I will point out is, we have a thing called a new farmer provision, that if you’re a new farmer, and basically, that’s a new crop in a new county, you can get 100 percent of T yields, this will not apply to this product.
Barbre is quick to point out that this is just a pilot insurance program.
The RMA is being cautious as it begins this entirely new endeavor.
“Number one, that won’t expose us to those risks that we don’t know how to actuarially write.
And number two, it will make the premiums a lot more digestible the first year.
Until we get a feel for this, we’re just trying to work through it slowly.”
Barbre says 21 states including California were chosen for this initial offering based on prior production.
“We chose all states that are going to be in the pilot that had 1,000 or more acres reported of hemp production to FSA in 2019.
Therefore, that’s the numbers that we have, the FSA numbers, we know exactly what they are, it’s just, we had to have some parameters, and that’s what we chose.”
