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Tuesday, February 27, 2024 - 9:45am

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2024 – Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack offered the following statement upon the Senate’s confirmation of Dr. Basil Gooden as U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Rural Development.

Monday, February 26, 2024 - 8:52pm
Photo credit: Lindsey Scalera

This week, the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) published a directory of crop insurance agents that specialize in selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection. This resource – which the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has advocated for – will be an important tool to help farmers locate crop insurance agents who have experience selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection and Micro Farm insurance in their state. 

Background

The Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) program is a novel crop insurance product that offers farmers nationwide the option to insure against revenue loss for their entire operation, including crop, livestock, and nursery production, under a single policy. It is the first insurance policy intended to cover smaller, diversified operations, and even includes a premium discount for crop diversification in recognition of its inherent risk-reduction impact. The Micro Farm option within WFRP offers a streamlined insurance product to producers with an average revenue of up to $350,000. 

Farmers interested in enrolling in WFRP or Micro Farm often report challenges to finding an insurance agent with sufficient knowledge or desire to sell insurance to smaller-scale and diversified operations. Tailoring a WFRP policy to farms that grow a diversity of specialty or organic crops is a more time- and labor-intensive endeavor, and one that agents are not always trained to do.

Despite this common obstacle, a niche market of crop insurance agents has taken root that specializes in selling the product to small, specialty crop, and diverse farmers. RMA’s new directory directing farmers to these agents fulfills an NSAC recommendation to enhance the delivery of the product.

Directory of Agents Selling WFRP

1,135 agents are included on the inaugural list of crop insurance agents that specialize in selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection. The list of agents from RMA will continue to be updated periodically through April 15, 2024. To be included in the list, crop insurance agents self-identified themselves as willing WFRP and Micro Farm agents. Prior experience selling a WFRP policy was not a prerequisite to inclusion on the list. These agents are licensed to sell in all 50 states, with at least two in every state, and a numerical breakdown by state is below.

Find the full list of agents by state as of February 15th here.

StateNumber of AgentsAlabama23Alaska3Arizona28Arkansas17California72Colorado27Connecticut7Delaware11Florida38Georgia25Hawaii9Idaho47Illinois 30Indiana26Iowa31Kansas38Kentucky14Louisiana17Maine4Maryland14Massachusetts3Michigan22Minnesota28Mississippi24Missouri25Montana25Nebraska27Nevada20New Hampshire2New Jersey8New Mexico20New York14North Carolina26North Dakota38Ohio20Oklahoma29Oregon49Pennsylvania15Rhode Island3South Carolina17South Dakota30Tennessee23Texas45Utah18Vermont2Virginia22Washington53West Virginia5Wisconsin22Wyoming19

Improving WFRP in the Farm Bill 

The most recent, comprehensive analysis of the performance of WFRP can be found in NSAC’s new report, Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net. NSAC has listened to farmers in the fields since the implementation of WFRP and advocated to strengthen the accessibility and performance of the program. This includes ongoing dialogue with USDA to continually improve the product. A new directory of agents selling WFRP is just one of the positive steps RMA has taken in recent years to expand access to the product, and the next farm bill presents another crucial opportunity to introduce reforms needed to overcome persistent barriers. 

The Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Program Improvement Act (S.2598) was introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in July 2023 to streamline access to WFRP and strengthen the product for enrolled farmers. The bill currently has nine co-sponsors, most serving on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry: Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Peter Welch (D-VT), John Fetterman (D-PA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was an original champion who pushed to include the development of WFRP in the 2014 Farm Bill.

The WFRP Improvement Act would specifically:

  • Authorize the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to carry out research and development to increase crop insurance participation by farmers marketing to local and regional markets.
  • Clarify that producers are permitted to enroll in a WFRP plan in addition to other insurance plans.
  • Authorize the FCIC to consider expanding the diversification premium discount to farmers that utilize a resource-conserving crop rotation.
  • Direct the FCIC to implement several targeted modifications to WFRP design and delivery to improve effectiveness for specialty crops and diversified farms.
  • Reduce paperwork burdens by clarifying that Schedule F tax forms are sufficient to establish historic revenue and that agents only may request additional paperwork if tax records are incomplete.
  • Prohibit the adjustment of price and production expectations at the time of submission of a loss claim.
  • Apply the streamlined application process introduced in the Micro Farm pilot to producers with at least $1 million in gross revenue, to include all small and mid-sized farms as defined by USDA.
  • Raise the annual 35% limit to historic gross revenue expansion to the lower of 100% or $500,000, to allow beginning and scaling farmers to be insured at a level that keeps pace with rapid operational growth.
  • Expand the diversification premium discount to apply to producers with at least 10 commodities, encouraging more diverse farmers to enroll in the program.
  • Moderate the impact of disaster years by including Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program payouts as historic gross revenue or by establishing a floor to how much historic gross revenue may fall annually.
  • Compensate crop insurance agents appropriately for Whole-Farm Revenue Protection sales in a manner determined by the Secretary, overcoming a key barrier for agents who are reluctant or refuse to sell WFRP policies.

NSAC and our members remain committed to advancing provisions in the next farm bill that will expand access to the farm safety net for producers growing fruits and vegetables to feed their communities.

The post Find a Crop Insurance Agent Who Sells Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Near You appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Friday, February 23, 2024 - 8:54am

Dr. Kristal Southern can remember being certain of two things as a child. “By the age of 4, I knew I wanted to be a vet,” she said. “And by age 13, I knew I wanted to attend a historically black college or university.”

Friday, February 23, 2024 - 12:00am
Purdue University’s College of Agriculture is proud to announce its selection as an institute partner for the 2024 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders. Beginning in mid-June, Purdue will host 25 of Africa’s bright, emerging business leaders for a six-week leadership institute, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 4:39pm

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post written by our partners at the Flower Hill Institute, a recipient of MPPTA funds, and an organization with whom NSAC collaborates frequently.

Gerard Jefferson, a teaching assistant at Tuskegee University ( a member of the MPPTA consortium), briefs students in the university’s meat lab prior to a sensory test on sausages produced as a part of the class project, as a part of their work with small meat processors.

Seeds planted over the past two years with the Biden Administration’s billion-dollar commitment to foster a more resilient, diverse, and equitable meat and poultry processing system are now beginning to sprout across the country and U.S. Territories:

  • A cooperative of Montana ranchers is purchasing and expanding a processing facility that was on the verge of closing;
  • Muslim producers in Maine are developing a new regional halal processing and marketing enterprise;
  • several tribally-led initiatives are building processing facilities to strengthen their food security; and 
  • a producers’ co-op in Puerto Rico that supplies roasting hogs for restaurants is expanding to supply local retailers with fresh, locally grown pork. 

This list goes on.

The American Rescue Plan (H.R. 1319, 117th Congress ) provided most of the funding for these programs. However, the demand for these resources has far too often outstripped the available funding. 

For example, in last April 2023, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service offered a total of $75 million in funding to processors through the Local Meat Capacity competitive grant program to help existing processors improve their facilities and expand processing capacity. 

AMS anticipated receiving about 300 applications for this program. More than 700 applications requesting $400 million flooded the agency when the application deadline closed in July 2023.  

Similarly, the Indigenous Animal Harvesting Grant (IAG) offered $50 million to tribal governments to develop culturally appropriate processing facilities to help increase food sovereignty within their nations. Sixty-seven tribes requested over $350 million in funding. 

MCap and IAG struck a strong chord with small processors and tribal nations. Adding a couple of new equipment items to their operation enables many processors to expand and diversify their marketing abilities. New tribal processing facilities can support the ability of tribal nations to feed their people. 

Members of AgriUnity Texas tour a modular meat processing facility in Mason, TX

At the outset of the Administration’s commitment, USDA enlisted a diverse group of organizations to provide technical assistance to people accessing the agency’s resources for meat and poultry processing expansion. That network includes the Niche Meat Processing Assistance Network at Oregon State University, Tuskegee University, the American Association of Meat Processors, the Intertribal Agriculture Council, American Meat Science Association, the Agriculture Utilization research Institute and Flower Hill Institute. Flower Hill, which has an agreement with AMS to coordinate this network, has partnered with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and 17 other organizations via MOUs to extend the outreach of the technical assistance program. Because of this highly diverse set of MPPTA organizations and MOU extensions, MPPTA has received over 1100+ TA requests in its short two years of existence.

Above is a map of all the TA requests that Flower Hill Institute, Tuskegee University, and the Agriculture Utilization Research Institute (3 of the 7 members of the MPPTA) received over 2023, demonstrating the nationwide need.

This technical assistance network will continue until at least year-end 2026, but many of the grant and loan programs funded under the American Rescue Plan were one-time opportunities. That’s something that writers of the next Farm Bill should consider. Sustaining these funding sources, with a focus on socially disadvantaged processors will be critical for more equitably developing our local food economies and strengthening our meat and poultry supply chains for future shocks. Future programs to expand and diversify the meat and poultry processing supply chain should include the custom-exempt processors that are important in many small communities, including those in which many residents rely heavily on wild game to feed their families.

In concert with thinking about potential continuation of these grant programs, the need for application and post award technical assistance would continue to grow after the spend out for the MPTTA program, which as mentioned above would end in 2026. We know from other programs, and from these novel meat and poultry expansion programs, that technical assistance itself can be a critical part in ensuring more equitable uptake of grant opportunities and more generally in generating successful projects that more effectively steward received grant dollars.

The seeds of the Administration’s commitment are indeed sprouting. Continued attention to the small processor sector, via grants and loans or field based technical assistance is vital to help these enterprises grow and thrive in the years ahead.

The post From the Field – Meat Processing Technical Assistance Success appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Thursday, February 22, 2024 - 12:00am
The Midwest Microbiome Symposium is making its return to Purdue University’s Beck Agricultural Center May 13-15. Originated and hosted by Purdue Applied Microbiome Sciences (PAMS), this three-day seminar will unravel the latest developments in the field of microbiome research.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - 4:17pm

This year marks the 100th anniversary of USDA’s Agricultural Outlook Forum. I was excited to participate in a panel session that reviewed the past 100 years of agricultural trade in the United States and acknowledge the forces that have shaped its evolution during the past century.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024 - 12:00am
Purdue University’s Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) has launched its new interactive chilling hours tool. Growers now can more closely monitor accumulated chilling hours, an important factor that tracks how long fruit plants have been exposed to an ideal range of cool temperatures throughout the dormant season.
Tuesday, February 20, 2024 - 9:51am

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net 

Tel. 347.563.6408

Release: NSAC Publishes Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net  Report Highlights Which States Benefit Most – and Least – from Farm Subsidies 

Washington, DC, February 20, 2024 – Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) released a new report titled Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net, which features a comprehensive analysis of the accessibility and concentration of public dollars distributed through crop insurance premium subsidies, commodity programs, and ad-hoc disaster assistance.

“The farm safety net is a cornerstone of agriculture policy and is a fault line in ongoing farm bill negotiations,” said report author Billy Hackett, NSAC Policy Specialist. “Despite record investment and small yet notable improvements in recent years, most small to mid-sized diversified farmers are still unable to access relief when disasters strike.”

The report finds that more than $142 billion was distributed through farm safety net programs from 2017-2022: $46 billion to crop insurance premium subsidies, $29 billion to commodity programs, and $67 billion to ad-hoc disaster assistance. The concentration of benefits across programs primarily in the Midwest and Great Plains appears to correlate more closely to the number of acres planted to covered commodities than to the number of farms in a state or its value of production. 

“Our new report outlines a path to strengthen and expand access to these critical programs for all farmers while saving costs long-term,” continued Hackett. “These goals are not at-odds with one another, but may be achieved through a recalibration toward holistic risk management that includes both a precise safety net and investments to help farmers adopt on-farm practices to build resilience against disasters.” 

Ultimately, the report recommends lawmakers adopt common-sense policy reforms to build a sustainable farm safety net that is fair, functional, and informed. As Congress proceeds toward a farm bill reauthorization in 2024, these recommendations help chart a path toward a strong, bipartisan bill.

NSAC will host a virtual briefing on Thursday, February 22, at 11:00 am EST to share key takeaways from the report and meet two farmers it featured: Angela Smith and Betty Chenier. 

Register for the briefing here: https://bit.ly/fsnbriefing.

Find the full report here: https://bit.ly/fsnreport

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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Release: NSAC Publishes Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net  appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

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