• RMA Announces Series of Updates, Including PP Changes Sought by Senators Thune, Hoeven, and Cramer – USDA’s Risk Management Agency announced a series of regulatory updates this week.  RMA is making permanent a flexibility allowing producers to hay, graze, or chop cover crops for silage, haylage, or baleage at any time and still receive 100 percent of a prevented planting payment, a change sought by Senators John Thune (R-SD), John Hoeven (R-ND), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND). Previously, cover crops could only be hayed, grazed, or chopped after November 1. RMA is also introducing new “1 in 4” prevented planting flexibilities including: (1) the annual regrowth for an insured perennial crop, such as alfalfa, red clover, or mint, to be considered planted; (2) allowing a crop covered by the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) to meet the insurability requirement; and, (3) if crop insurance or NAP coverage is not available, allowing the producer to prove the acreage was planted and harvested using good farming practices in at least two consecutive years out of the four previous years to meet the insurability requirement.
  • Thune, Tester Lead Colleagues in Requesting Assistance for Livestock Producers Affected by Drought – Sens. John Thune (R-SD), a longtime member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the Republican Whip, and Jon Tester (D-MT), a member of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, led a bipartisan group of senators in urging USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) to address a gap in coverage under the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP). In September, USDA announced it would provide ELAP assistance for the cost of transporting feed to livestock, but producers who are transporting their livestock to feed are not eligible for the program.  “[W]e continue to hear from producers who have been severely affected by drought this year and have incurred costs related to transporting their livestock to feed sources instead of hauling feed to their livestock,” the senators wrote. “We respectfully request that FSA exercise its authority to further improve ELAP by providing payments to producers for a portion of the costs they have incurred from transporting their livestock to feed sources.”
  • Biden Returning to USDA Survey for H-2A Rates, Senator Tillis Pushes for Wage Freeze  – Following a court blocking an attempt by the Trump Administration to freeze H-2A wages for two years, the Labor Department said in a proposal in the Federal Register that “for the vast majority” of H-2A jobs, it plans to rely on USDA’s Farm Labor Survey to establish the Adverse Effect Wage Rates (AEWR).  The latest semi-annual USDA survey, released last week, says farmworkers earned an average of $16.59 an hour in October, a 5 percent increase from the year before. The announcement was met with frustration from many in the agriculture industry who rely on the H-2A program. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has introduced legislation to freeze H-2A wages through December 2022. Though Congress does not have a strong track record of moving agriculture labor legislation, Senator Tillis’ legislation is spot on.