The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday announced updates to the Federal Crop Insurance Program affirming the use of USDA conservation practices as Good Farming Practices for crop insurance.

Recently, USDA’s Risk Management Agency updated the Good Farming Practices Handbook, as part of the agency’s broader efforts to support conservation and climate-smart activities as well as to improve crop insurance for agricultural producers.

The updated handbook recognizes all conservation practices offered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service as Good Farming Practices for crop insurance. Essentially, appropriate use of NRCS conservation practices will have no impact on crop insurance coverage, which affirms how the rules have worked on the ground for years. The updated handbook builds on similar efforts, including RMA’s designation of planting cover crops as a Good Farming Practice in 2019.

“This update affirms producers can have peace of mind that using conservation practices will not impact their crop insurance,” RMA Administrator Marcia Bunger said.