Sponsors (7)
The bill expands and simplifies crop and whole‑farm insurance access—especially for small, diversified, and underserved producers—while increasing fiscal exposure and program integrity, implementation, and actuarial risks that could shift costs or create payout mismatches.
Specialty, diversified, direct-market, micro, and other small farms (including direct-to-consumer and local/regional sellers) gain substantially expanded access to whole-farm revenue protection through tailored changes (micro-farm plan offered nationwide, higher revenue caps, allowance for vertical integration and concurrent crop-specific policies).
Producers with limited bookkeeping can use IRS Schedule F as primary revenue documentation and benefit from clearer, more predictable treatment of revenue and price declines, making revenue-based coverage easier to obtain and administer.
Targeted producers (limited‑resource, beginning, socially disadvantaged, veterans, and streamlined revenue-based producers) can get phased premium discounts when transitioning to whole-farm plans and higher payment‑limit exceptions, lowering upfront costs and increasing potential support.
Taxpayers and program budgets face materially higher costs if expanded eligibility, phased premium discounts, higher revenue caps, and raised payment exceptions increase program payouts or reduce premium adequacy.
Accepting Schedule F as primary documentation and stronger presumptions about price declines reduce verification and increase the risk of improper payments or fraud, straining program integrity and potentially causing taxpayer losses.
Index‑based weather insurance may not reflect an individual farm's actual losses (basis risk), so some producers could receive payments that do not match their on‑farm income loss.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Jahana Hayes · Last progress March 27, 2025
Revises USDA disaster and crop insurance programs to help small, specialty, diversified, direct‑market, and micro farms get better coverage and simpler paperwork. It creates a streamlined revenue‑based NAP option that can use Schedule F tax forms, an on‑ramp with multi‑year premium discounts into Whole‑Farm plans, faster loss‑reporting and remote appraisal options, expanded targeted payment limits and discounted premiums for certain farmer groups, and new RMA requirements to improve Whole‑Farm and micro‑farm insurance. It also directs research and development of a nationwide "single index" weather‑based insurance policy with buy‑up/buy‑down options and requires agency reports and deadlines for many changes.