Feb. 28 Deadline to Sign Up for Crop Insurance

PINE BLUFF, Ark. – Feb. 28 is the deadline for Arkansas row crop producers to make all crop insurance decisions for spring crops. Growers have until then to decide if they want to purchase crop insurance, reinstate crop insurance, which crops they want to insure and their levels of coverage for the 2014 crop insurance year.

Arkansas row crops affected by the Feb. 28 date are corn, cotton soybeans, rice, grain sorghum, peanuts and fresh market tomatoes. Arkansas tomato growers can also purchase crop insurance even though fresh market tomatoes are not a row crop. Tomato growers must make similar decisions, but they have until March 15 to do so, says Dr. Henry English, director of the Small Farm Project at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Farmers must notify their crop insurance agent in writing by Feb. 28 to cancel their crop insurance. If farmers do nothing, their current level of insurance will roll over. Now is not the time to be canceling crop insurance, says Dr. English. With changing weather patterns, the opposite is true.

If traditional crop insurance policies are not available in your particular area, ask an agent if you are eligible for coverage through a written agreement. A list of crop insurance agents is available at all USDA Service Centers or on the Risk Management Agency website at www.rma.usda.gov/tools/agents.

For additional information, contact Travis Johnson at (601) 965-4771.

February 14, 2014

By Carol Sanders
Writer/editor
UAPB School of Agriculture
Fisheries and Human Sciences
(870) 575-7238
sandersc@uapb.edu