Federal Crop Insurance Corporation 2020 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) amends the Area Risk Protection Insurance (ARPI) Regulations; Common Crop Insurance Policy (CCIP), Basic Provisions; Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Sunflower Seed Crop Insurance Provisions (Sunflower Seed Crop Provisions); and Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Dry Pea Crop Insurance Provisions (Dry Pea Crop Provisions). The intended effect of this action is to improve prevented planting provisions, revise beginning farmer or rancher and veteran farmer or rancher provisions and clarify arbitration provisions. In addition to these changes, FCIC is making clarifications to the Dry Pea Crop Provisions and revising the cancellation and termination dates in the Sunflower Seed Crop Provisions. The changes to the policy made in this rule are applicable for the 2021 and succeeding crop years for crops with a contract change date on or after November 30, 2020. For all other crops, the changes to the policy made in this rule are applicable for the 2022 and succeeding crop years.

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) amends the Area Risk Protection Insurance (ARPI) Regulations; Common Crop Insurance Policy (CCIP) Basic Provisions; and the Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Coarse Grains Crop Insurance Provisions. The intended effect of this action is to implement the changes contained in the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (commonly referred to as the 2018 Farm Bill). Section 11122 of the 2018 Farm Bill required that FCIC research and develop methods of adjusting for quality losses. In addition to the 2018 Farm Bill required changes, FCIC is updating provisions regarding premium offsets, Administrator reinstatement, notice of loss, double cropping requirements, prevented planting, and units. The changes to the policy made in this rule are applicable for the 2021 crop year for crops with a contract change date on or after June 30, 2020. For all crops the changes to the policy made in this rule are applicable for the 2022 and succeeding crop years.

The general debt management regulations of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) provide that individual USDA agencies may issue regulations for their own specific debt collection activities principally in recognition that the agencies conducted debt collection activities prior to the enactment of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA). Many of the provisions of individual agencies are redundant to part 3. This rule will eliminate the debt collection regulations of the following USDA agencies, and part 3 will be revised to include specific provisions used by these agencies: the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC); the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), and the Farm Service Agency (FSA). In addition, as required by the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Improvements Act of 2015 (the 2015 Civil Penalties Act), this rule updates the size of civil monetary penalties to reflect inflationary adjustments for 2020.

The Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) amends the Common Crop Insurance Regulations, Forage Production Crop Insurance Provisions and Forage Seeding Crop Insurance Provisions. The intended effect of this action is to update existing policy provisions and definitions to better reflect current agricultural practices and allow for variations in insurance provisions based on regionally-specific agronomic conditions and potential future expansions. The changes are to be effective for the 2021 and succeeding crop years.

This notice announces a public comment period on the information collection requests (ICRs) associated with the Area Risk Protection Insurance.