The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently proposed to expand certain regulations to increase the availability of crop insurance to many farmers who currently can’t purchase coverage for their crops – including many fruit and vegetable growers – the agency announced recently.

“These improvements will help expand and improve crop insurance to underserved crops,” noted Risk Management Agency Administrator Brandon Willis.  The proposed rule will ease the burden on private submitters while making crop insurance policies for underserved and specialty crop commodities a priority.

Many of the recommended changes addressed provisions of the 2014 Farm Bill that were meant to expand the farm safety net options for modern agricultural practices, a move of significant importance given the elimination of direct payments to farmers.

“We are continuing our work to ensure that a wider variety of producers have access to sound risk management tools to keep themselves protected from disaster,” noted Willis.   USDA’s full announcement can be found here.