USDA RMA Offers Coverage for Split-N Regimes

The USDA Risk Management Agency has announced details of a program designed to insure crops in split-nitrogen situations, according to an agency press release.

The Post Application Coverage Endorsement (PACE) furnishes insurance against crop loss in situations where growers are prevented from applying the second half of a nitrogen regime due to weather or field conditions. PACE is meant to specifically provide payments for projected yield loss when growers are unable to apply nitrogen during the V3-V10 growth stages.

The program is available to growers in select counties in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Ohio and Wisconsin.

PACE is available only as a supplement to yield production, revenue protection, and revenue protection with harvest price exclusion policies.

Losses must be reported either 72 hours after the end of the insurance period or within 72 hours of the inability to post-apply nitrogen, whichever is later.

Growers must have documentation to support the purchase of nitrogen for split application, and record both the planned acreage for split nitrogen and the acreage where split nitrogen was actually applied.

Coverage levels are available from 75 percent up to 90 percent in five-percent increments.

The sales closing, cancellation and termination date for the new programs is March 15.

More information about the program is available from crop insurance agents, or available online.

PACE is intended to support growers — among them no-tillers, strip-tillers, organic farmers, and others — who practice conservation agriculture. Other programs include the Pandemic Cover Crop Program, which recently furnished $59.5 million to support insured producers’ ability to hay, graze, or chop covers at any time and still receive 100% of the prevented planting payment.