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USDA Issues Final Double Cropping Rule
USAgNet - 07/01/2016

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently completed several rulemakings affecting the federal crop insurance program. On June 22, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation published a final rule amending provisions related to double-cropping and the regulations for when a crop is considered to be 'practical to replant.'

The changes would be applicable to the 2017 and succeeding crop years for crops with a contract change date of June 22, 2016 or later and for the 2018 and succeeding crop years for crops with a contract change date prior to June 22, 2016.

There are some areas of the country where the growing season lasts long enough to enable farmers the opportunity to harvest a winter wheat crop and then plant a soybean crop on the same land. However, weather conditions can affect the number of acres planted to double-crop soybeans and cause variations from year to year. As a result, it is difficult to establish base acres.

Additionally, the previous rules didn't account for operations that add on acres in a given year. As such, the rule change would allow operations to base double cropping acres on either the greatest number of acres double cropped in two of the last four years or the percentage of acres historically double cropped in two of the last four crop years. The example given is that if a producer has a 100 acre farm and they've historically double-cropped 50 acres of wheat followed by soybeans, and that farm adds an additional 200 acres, the number of acres eligible for double cropping would be 150 acres.

Though this is a final rule, USDA has initiated a comment period that will be open until August 22, 2016. Instructions for submitting comments are included in the federal register notice.


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