The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is authorizing emergency procedures to help agricultural producers impacted by extreme drought conditions.  USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) is working with crop insurance companies to streamline and accelerate the adjustment of losses and issuance of indemnity payments to crop insurance policyholders in impacted areas.

Producers should contact their crop insurance agent as soon as they notice damage.  The insurance company must have an opportunity to inspect the crop before the producer puts their crop acres to another use.  If the company cannot make an accurate appraisal, or the producer disagrees with the appraisal at the time the acreage is to be destroyed or no longer cared for, the insurance company and producer can determine representative sample areas to be left intact and maintained for future appraisal purposes. Once an insured crop has been appraised and released, or representative strips have been authorized for later appraisal, the producer may cut the crop for silage, destroy it or take any other action on the land including planting a cover crop.

Additional information on these emergency procedures is available on RMA’s Crop Insurance and Drought Damaged Crop webpage.