A provision in the 2014 Farm Bill links conservation compliance to crop insurance premiums; specifically, wetlands and highly erodible land. Farmers who don’t comply will be ineligible for any portion of the crop insurance paid by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. The ineligibility applies only to forward years.

Final determination in this setting means the person can first exhaust all administrative appeal rights before becoming ineligible and if that falls during the reinsurance year, the person becomes ineligible the following year. Ineligibility cannot, however, apply to existing or prior reinsurance years. These explicit provisions in the statute mean that ineligibility for crop insurance premium assistance only impacts future years; there is no authority to impact current or previous crop insurance policies or contracts. According to the Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA) between the insurance companies and the FCIC the reinsurance year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30^th of the following year. Again, these provisions are common for both highly erodible lands and wetlands compliance.

Read more about the new conservation compliance provisions from the University of Illinois.

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