Soybean Rust Coverage Available in U.S.

LANSING - Feb 24/05 - MFB -- Soybean growers looking for protection against the latest potential threat are encouraged to take advantage of new crop insurance language approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Authority (RMA).

As the nation's agriculture industry scrambles to familiarize itself with soybean rust, a fungus that made its way to the United States' Deep South last fall from overseas, RMA has drafted insurance guidelines that will enable limited protections for forward-thinking producers.

Savvy planners have until March 15 to protect their 2005 crops by arranging appropriate policies through their preferred crop insurance provider.

As the standardizing authority for crop insurance, RMA policy is to provide insurance "against loss of production due to unavoidable causes of loss, including plant disease, but not damage due to insufficient or improper application of disease control measures."

"Losses to soybean production due to soybean rust disease is an insurable cause of loss provided the insured can verify that the cause was natural (not agroterrorism), and available control measures were properly applied," according to a recent RMA release on the issue. "If there are no effective control measures available or there are insufficient amounts of chemicals available for effective control, resulting loss of production would be covered. It will not be a covered loss if there are sufficient control measures available, but the insured elects not to use them."

This means losses will be covered if:

- The cause of loss was natural (not intentionally introduced )

- Proper control measures (spraying) were used in a timely fashion

- Insufficient amounts of chemical are available for proper treatment (as determined by RMA). The producer must make good-faith effort to obtain fungicide and provide documentation if fungicide is unavailable.

- Treatment cannot be applied due to weather (documentation required)

- Treatment cannot be applied due to lack of applicator availability (documentation required)

Losses will not be covered if:

- Sufficient chemicals were available but not utilized in a timely fashion (determined by RMA)

- Producer fails to purchase and apply recommended chemical treatment, especially if a recommendation was made in that area to spray and other producers in area followed the recommendation. (RMA will not consider the cost of fungicide; if it is available, the producer must spray to be covered.)

To assure coverage in the event they cannot get fungicide applied in a timely fashion, it will be vital for producers to provide verifiable documentation that they attempted to purchase fungicide and/or applicator services in a timely fashion. It is recommended that they stay in close contact with their insurance provider's agent or adjustor.

The above steps need to be taken regardless of which federal crop insurance policy is used.

Policies based on county average yields instead of individual yields - such as Group Risk Protection (GRP) or Group Risk Income Protection (GRIP) - offer no protection to producers failing to take the above-detailed measures. Good farming techniques, as determined by the RMA, must be used regardless of policy used.

Copyright (c) 2005 Michigan Farm Bureau