Flax Revenue and Expanded Unit Options for Crop Insurance

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Federal Crop Insurance Corporation</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Parts 407 and 457</CFR> <RIN>RIN 0563-AC86</RIN> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID FCIC-24-0005]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Flax Revenue and Expanded Unit Options for Crop Insurance</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule with request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) is amending its regulations to allow revenue coverage for flax under the Small Grain Crop Insurance Provisions, to combine written agreement deadlines in the Dry Bean Crop Insurance Provisions to match other insurance policies, to expand the availability of enterprise and optional units for some specialty and perennial crops, and to make clarifications and corrections to the Area Risk Protection Insurance, Basic Provisions; Common Crop Insurance Policy, Basic Provisions; and several Crop Provisions. The changes will be effective for the 2025 and succeeding crop years for crops with a contract change date on or after November 30, 2024. For all other crops, the changes to the policies made in this rule are applicable for the 2026 and succeeding crop years. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> This final rule is effective November 30, 2024. <E T="03">Comment Date:</E> We will consider comments that we receive by the close of business January 27, 2025. FCIC may consider the comments received and may conduct additional rulemaking based on the comments. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> We invite you to submit comments on this rule. You may submit comments by going through the Federal eRulemaking Portal as follows: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for Docket ID FCIC-24-0005. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. All comments will be posted without change and will be publicly available on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Chandra Place; telephone (816) 926-3875; or email <E T="03">chandra.place@usda.gov.</E> Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication should contact the USDA Target Center at (202) 720-2600 or (844) 433-2774 (toll-free nationwide). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> FCIC serves America's agricultural producers through effective, market-based risk management tools to strengthen the economic stability of agricultural producers and rural communities. FCIC is committed to increasing the availability and effectiveness of Federal crop insurance as a risk management tool. Approved Insurance Providers (AIPs) sell and service Federal crop insurance policies in every state through a public-private partnership. FCIC reinsures the AIPs who share the risks associated with catastrophic losses due to major weather events. FCIC's vision is to secure the future of agriculture by providing world class risk management tools to rural America. Federal crop insurance policies typically consist of the Basic Provisions, the Crop Provisions, the Special Provisions, the Commodity Exchange Price Provisions, if applicable, other applicable endorsements or options, the actuarial documents for the insured agricultural commodity, the Catastrophic Risk Protection Endorsement, if applicable, and the applicable regulations published in 7 CFR chapter IV. Throughout this rule, the terms “Crop Provisions,” “Special Provisions,” and “policy” are used as defined in the Common Crop Insurance Policy (CCIP) Basic Provisions in 7 CFR 457.8. Additional information and definitions related to Federal crop insurance policies are in 7 CFR 457.8. FCIC is amending the following regulations: • Area Risk Protection Insurance Basic Provisions (7 CFR part 407); • Common Crop Insurance Policy Basic Provisions (7 CFR 457.8); • Small grain crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.101); • Prune crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.133); • Green pea crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.137); • Northern potato crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.142); • Central and Southern potato crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.147); • Dry bean crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.150); • Processing sweet corn crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.154); and • Blueberry crop insurance provisions (7 CFR 457.166). The changes to the crop insurance policies resulting from the amendments in this rule are applicable for the 2025 and succeeding crop years for crops with a contract change date on or after November 30, 2024. For all other crops, the changes to the crop insurance policies resulting from the amendments in this rule are applicable for the 2026 and succeeding crop years. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Flax Revenue Coverage</HD> The Small Grain Crop Provisions previously offered actual production history (APH) coverage to buckwheat and flax; and offered yield protection (YP), revenue protection (RP), and revenue protection with harvest price exclusion (RP-HPE) to barley, oats, rye, and wheat. In this Final Rule, FCIC is expanding revenue protection (RP and RP-HPE) to flax, matching available coverage for barley, oats, rye, and wheat. The current APH coverage for flax is now converted to YP. For producers who wish to maintain yield coverage, the only difference in coverage is the price guarantee matches the projected price offered for revenue protection (established approximately two weeks prior to the sales closing date), instead of a price election established by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) (established prior to the contract change date). With the availability of revenue protection for flax, the terms “price election” and “production guarantee” are no longer applicable. Instead, the terms “projected price,” “yield protection guarantee,” and “revenue protection guarantee” are applicable. These changes appear in the following sections of the Small Grain Crop Provisions: 3(a) and (b), 9(c), and 11(b) and (c). FCIC is revising section 3(a) to remove the references to flax. This provision previously stated that revenue protection is not available for flax or buckwheat. FCIC is removing flax from the list of crops because revenue coverage is now available for flax. FCIC is also revising section 3(b) to add references to flax. These provisions previously stated that revenue protection is available for barley, oats, rye, and wheat. FCIC is adding flax to the list of crops in the two places where the list occurs. FCIC is revising section 9(c)(2)(i) to remove the reference to flax and revise section 9(c)(2)(ii) to add a reference to flax. When a crop does not have yield or revenue protection available, the price used for determining coverage and any indemnity payments, including replanting payments, is called the price election. For crops for which yield and revenue protection are available, this price is called the projected price. In section 9(c)(2)(i), the provision previously stated that the replanting payment for flax will be determined by using the price election. Under this rule, revenue and yield protection plans of insurance are now available for flax; therefore, the price used is the projected price. FCIC is revising section 9(c)(2)(i) to remove the reference to flax. Section 9(c)(2)(ii) contains provisions applicable to the projected price. FCIC is revising section 9(c)(2)(ii) to include flax, as the projected price will now be used. For crops for which yield and revenue protection are available, the applicable terms for insurance coverage are yield protection guarantee and revenue protection guarantee. For crops for which yield and revenue protection are not available, the applicable term is production guarantee. FCIC is revising sections 11(b)(1)(i), (ii), and (iii). These sections refer to “yield protection guarantee,” “production guarantee,” and “revenue protection guarantee,” respectively. The references to flax in section 11(b)(1)(ii), which addresses production guarantee, were removed and added to sections 11(b)(1)(i) and (iii), which address yield protection guarantee and revenue protection guarantee. FCIC is also revising section 11(b)(3)(i) to add a reference to flax and revising section 11(b)(3)(ii) to remove the reference to flax. This change is consistent with the change in section 9(c)(2). Section 11(b)(3)(i) refers to computations using the projected price; section 11(b)(3)(ii) refers to computations using the price election. Flax was removed from section 11(b)(3)(ii) and added to section 11(b)(3)(i) to align with the proper terms for crops for which revenue protection is available. Section 11(c)(1)(i) explains what is included in appraised production. Previously, flax was contained in a list of crops with buckwheat. Those two crops had similar coverage and used the same crop insurance terminology under the Small Grain Crop Provisions when revenue coverage was not yet available for flax. Now, flax has been removed from the list of crops containing buckwheat and added to the list of crops containing barley, oats, rye, and wheat in two places because allowing revenue coverage for flax makes coverage and crop insurance terminology for that crop consistent with coverage and terminology for barley, oats, rye, and wheat. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Dry Bean Written Agreement Deadlines</HD> FCIC is combining written agreement deadlines to reduce confusion and administrative complexity when a producer requests a written agreement based on multiple criteria. Previously, the written agreement deadline to add an insurable practice or type was the acreage reporting date for new requests and the sales closing date for renewal requests; however, the deadline to add an insurable dry bean ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. 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