Producers face production and marketing risks that could affect the operation’s financial performance every growing season. Developing strategies to mitigate such risk is essential for the health of the operation. USDA offers a number of programs to insure specialty crops including individual insurance programs, federal crop insurance, whole-farm revenue protection, and the production and revenue history insurance plan.
Interest in insurance plans for specialty crops has increased with the Federal Crop Insurance program alone providing coverage for specialty crops amounting to more than $22 Billion in 2021 (Figure 1). In terms of broad categories, fruits and tree nuts receiving the highest share followed by vegetables and horticulture nursery crops.
Figure 1. Federal Crop Insurance Coverage for Specialty Crops, years 2007-2021.
Some expansions of insurance products and programs to specialty crops piloted in 2021 with the production and revenue history insurance plan made available to FL strawberry producers for the 2021 crop year. Interested in learning more about available programs? A list of individual crop insurance programs is provided by the USDA Risk Management Agency: hyperlink https://www.rma.usda.gov/en/Topics/Specialty-Crops
Author: Maria Bampasidou
Assistant Professor
mbampasidou@agcenter.lsu.edu
Bampasidou, Maria . “Insurance Plans for Specialty Crops“. Southern Ag Today 2(44.5). October 28, 2022. Permalink
