Do you have a diversified operation with several crops and products?

Do you market directly for better prices?

You may want to look into revenue insurance available to New England farmers.

Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue-Lite (AGR-Lite) insure agricultural income rather than crop yields. They offer simplified, whole-farm revenue protection based on your average revenue reported on your IRS tax return (Schedule F).

AGR or AGR-Lite could work for you…

• To protect crops and animal products, not otherwise insurable.
• When crop yields are good, but prices are low.
• If you grow high value crops.
• If your crops are organic.
• If you grow primarily for direct market.
• Where drought or other natural hazard affects all crops and animal production.
• In combination with traditional, single crop insurance policies.

Because AGR and AGR-Lite insure the revenue of the farm, the protection is not directly related to the amount or quality of production. Rather, it is tied to loss of revenue due to natural disasters, low market prices or both.

Covered farm revenue includes income from almost all crops and agricultural commodities including greenhouse production, animals and animal products. This means that you can get coverage for crops not currently covered under traditional crop insurance policies. Multiple crops are covered in one policy. With AGR, up to 35% of the farm revenue can come from livestock and livestock products. There is no livestock revenue limitation for AGR-Lite.

With AGR and AGR-Lite, your guaranteed revenue for the insurance period is based on past tax returns. You already have those records so it’s relatively easy compared to most other insurance programs. To be eligible, you must have filed federal income tax returns under the same entity (or a new entity encompassing at least 90% of the previous one) for five consecutive years.

When you apply for AGR or AGR-Lite, you select the desired coverage level and payment rate. A 65% coverage/75% payment rate, for example, means you are insuring against any adjusted gross revenue loss greater than 35% of your five-year average, and that you would collect 75% of that amount.

Coverage level options for both AGR and AGR-Lite are 65, 75 or 80 percent of your average adjusted gross revenue. Payment rate choices for both policies are 75 or 90 percent of the revenue loss.

Who Qualifies?

• Must be a US citizen or resident.
• Have liability not exceeding one million for AGR-Lite, 6.5 million for AGR.
• Have had the same tax entity for 7 years - filed 5 consecutive years of Schedule F tax forms, plus previous year and insurance year.
• Have revenues from commodities purchased for resale not exceeding 50% of the total.
• Under AGR, no more than 35% of allowable income may be from animals or animal products. No such restriction applies to AGR-Lite.
• Under both AGR and AGR-Lite, no more than 83.35% of total revenue can come from potatoes.

Extra revenue from value added to crops by processing (making apples into pies, cheese from milk) is not eligible — only the value of the raw crop ingredients are insurable. Also a producer may not purchase both AGR and AGR-Lite.

How to do I Apply?

Check the current year’s deadline for AGR and AGR-Lite. It may be earlier than the most common spring deadline for crop insurance.

• Find a crop insurance agent who is familiar with writing AGR or AGR-Lite policies. A list of agents may be obtained at http://www3.rma.usda.gov/apps/agents/.
• You must provide basic information to your crop insurance agent before the deadline.
• Applications must include an Annual Farm Report and identify the amount of revenue coverage chosen.
• There may be crop diversification requirements to qualify for higher levels of coverage.

For More Information

Go to http://www.rma.usda.gov/ or contact

Raleigh Regional Office

4405 Bland Road, Suite 160

Raleigh, NC 27609

Phone: (919) 875-4880