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Cover Crops and the Crop Insurance Program in Maryland

Paul Goeringer and Lori Lynch

Summary

Crop insurance is taking an ever more important role in the risk management tools used by farmers. USDA’s Risk Management, Center for Agricultural and Natural Resource Policy and the Maryland Department of Agriculture have partnered to provide outreach and education over crop insurance products available in Maryland. Our proposed poster is currently being used to present information on changes to the cover drop rules to Maryland farmers. Recently, RMA, NRCS, and FSA agreed on a common policy as it relates to cover crops. This change in policy sets forth common guidelines on when cover crops should be destroyed and the approved methods for termination. At the same time, the state of Maryland has implemented a cover crop program to provide cost-share money to encourage producers to utilize cover crops with its own termination process. Our poster lays out the new USDA guidelines, the guidelines for Maryland’s cover crop program, and discusses strategies a Maryland producer could utilize to stay in compliance with both programs. Our poster is currently being displayed at the winter agronomy meetings being help across Maryland this year. This poster has been very useful in providing quick format to get the information out when the county’s meeting may not have enough time for a presentation over recent changes to crop insurance. Displaying this poster at the Women in Agriculture Educators Conference will provide an outlet to allow other educators to see methods which could work in their education programs.

Details

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