DTN Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton reported last week that, “After a few conversations with our crops technology editor about dicamba drift, getting a few emails and checking out the Twitter scroll on the topic, it appears at least a few farmers in the Midwest aren’t as clear on the crop insurance situation regarding dicamba drift as their mid-South brethren.
“Federal crop insurance won’t come to your rescue if your yield is hammered because of heavy pesticide drift. As the Risk Management Agency responded to me, the Federal Crop Insurance Act only covers losses for drought, flood or other natural disasters. Chemical drift is not an insurable loss. This is essentially a third-party tort issue.
“Just to clarify that point, RMA shared a link to the 419-pageLoss Adjustment Manual Standards Handbook. https://www.rma.usda.gov/… “
The DTN article added that, “Getting back [to] insurance, there have been a lot of questions about what happens to Actual Production History when there is dicamba damage. Here, RMA is making some changes. Starting in the 2018 crop year, farmers can elect to exclude yields from their APH due to uninsurable losses, such as third-party damage. So if a farmer has a significant yield collapse because of dicamba drift, then the farmer can elect to exclude that APH. Once again, RMA graced us with more summer reading with the recent release of the 2018 Crop Insurance Handbook that addresses the issue on page 189, section 1305 G of the handbook, https://www.rma.usda.gov/handbooks/18000/2018/18_18010.pdf “
