USDA reversal on crop insurance change welcomed by farm groups

(North Dakota Monitor)- The U.S. Department of Agriculture is reversing course on a change to a federal crop insurance policy to allow farmers to buy more protection if weather or field conditions prevent them from planting a crop.

USDA had eliminated the option to buy additional prevented planting insurance going into the 2026 growing season. This raised concerns from growers in North Dakota, where the buy-up option has been a popular risk-management tool.

In a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins where the department stood on the policy.

“We are 100% supportive of that and are moving forward to execute that buy-up option,” Rollins said.

The change will restore the 5% buy-up option, which provided additional coverage for more than 67 million acres across the country in 2025. North Dakota accounted for 10 million of those acres, Hoeven said.

Justin Sherlock, past president of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association and a director with the American Soybean Association, said restoring the buy-up option is welcome news, but that farm groups felt that USDA was required by law to offer it.

He said defending crop insurance in general was the bigger issue.

“It was the concern that this could be a bigger infringement upon the crop insurance program as Congress intended it.”

While he was encouraged by Rollins’ comments, Sherlock said he would like to see the change noted in the Federal Register or in a formal statement from USDA.

Prevented planting was not a major issue in North Dakota this year, but Sherlock did benefit from hail insurance on some land in Griggs County.

“I wouldn’t be farming without it,” Sherlock said of federal crop insurance.

Hoeven credited working with Chair Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark.,and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., of the Senate Agriculture Committee on emphasizing the need to return to the previous policy.

“Given the challenges facing farm country, we worked very hard to restore this prevented plant buy-up option to provide our producers with an additional layer of protection when disaster prevents them from planting their fields,” Hoeven said in a news release.