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New crop insurance opportunities for soybeans and oats

Wisconsin farmers can plant soybeans earlier this spring without losing crop insurance eligibility. 

Economist Paul Mitchell is with the University of Wisconsin. He tells Brownfield, “The earliest planting dates have become earlier now. They used to be April 26th for the whole state of Wisconsin. It’s now April 15th for the southern third, April 20th in the middle chunk, and then the very far north is actually April 30th.”

Mitchell says the new guidelines make it less risky for farmers to plant soybeans early. “If you have a late frost that kills your crop or creates a stand reduction, you can now get a replant coverage and plant much earlier than you used to be able to.”

Mitchell says the USDA’s Risk Management Agency is also offering new revenue protection for oats, much like wheat, corn, and soybeans, and he expects many farmers will sign up. “It’s going to be, again, probably that 75% coverage level is going to be very popular. Get as large of units as you can like the enterprise units, but, I think you’ll see oats has not really had a lot of insurance. I think there will be some interest now with this revenue protection available for oats.”

Mitchell says farmers should reach out to their crop insurance agents to find the coverage that fits their operations.