USDA offers new crop insurance

Feb 28, 2020

Farmers can purchase Hurricane Insurance Protection – Wind Index endorsement

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

The USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) has introduced a new crop insurance option for eligible farmers.

The RMA unveiled its Hurricane Insurance Protection – Wind Index (HIP-WI) endorsement yesterday.

The insurance “covers a portion of the deductible of the underlying crop insurance policy when a county, or a county adjacent to it, is within the area of sustained hurricane-force winds.”

Those winds must come from a named hurricane that’s published by the National Hurricane Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

HIP-WI provides coverage for 70 different crops including corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, cotton and grain sorghum.

The coverage is available to farmers in counties stretching from Texas and Florida all the way up the Atlantic coast to Pennsylvania, New York and Maine.

“Hurricane season will be upon us before we know it,” Martin Barbre, administrator of the RMA, said in a Feb. 27 statement. “This new hurricane endorsement provides some added protection for producers along the Gulf and east coasts as well as Hawaii.”

The recent hurricane seasons have underscored a need for this type of coverage, he added.

To be eligible for the coverage, a farmer must have an insurance policy under the Basic Provisions with the same insurance provider, elect HIP-WI on or before the closing date of April 30, 2020 and elect a coverage percentage.

Farms.com has reached out to producers and the American Farm Bureau Federation for comment.

Hurricane Dorian/NASA photo

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.