The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA) has published a directory of crop insurance agents that specialize in selling Whole-Farm Revenue Protection.
This resource—for which CCOF’s colleagues at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) have advocated—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.
Para más información general de seguro de cosechas, visite esta página de información de la RMA.
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
There are 1,135 entries 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 many agents are licensed to sell in more than one state.
Find the full list of agents by state as of February 15 at the USDA website.
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This blog was originally published by NSAC on February 26, 2014. Read it and view a numerical breakdown of agents willing to sell WFRP by state.