Are there any conservation compliance requirements for farmers who purchase crop insurance?

Yes. The 2014 Farm Bill requires that a farmer must adhere to an approved conservation plan intended to protect highly erodible land and wetlands in order to be eligible for a premium discount. A farmer not previously subject to this requirement has five years to develop and comply with an approved plan to maintain eligibility. Conservation compliance also requires that for a farmer to be eligible for a premium discount, he/she cannot convert wetlands by draining or using other means to make them farmable and cannot produce an agricultural commodity on converted wetlands. The wetlands provisions also provide time to comply, depending on whether the farmer is covered for the first time and when conversion took place.

A farmer previously subject to the requirement, and who is currently in violation of highly erodible land conservation, has two years to develop and comply with a conservation plan. Ineligibility for premium support applies only to years after the final determination of a violation, including all administrative appeals.

The farm bill also protects native sod. If a farmer breaks native sod and purchases crop insurance on that land, then the yields used to calculate the insurance guarantee will be 65 percent of the county average yield, and the premium discount will be reduced by 50 percentage points. This provision only applies to native sod in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska.