U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chairman John Boozman (R-AR), along with senior committee member John Hoeven (R-ND), led a bipartisan group of 19 Senators in urging Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to reinstate additional crop insurance coverage for acres prevented from being planted.
“Eliminating the option for producers to purchase additional buy-up coverage for prevented planting is troubling, especially at a time when our farmers need access to all risk management tools available to them,” the senators wrote.
When weather conditions prevent timely planting, buy-up coverage provides critical protection for producers in all 50 states. USDA’s decision to end prevented-planting buy-up coverage has raised concerns among growers nationwide.
In addition to Klobuchar, Boozman and Hoeven, the letter was signed by Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senators Tina Smith (D-MN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Peter Welch (D-VT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-KS), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Jim Justice (R-WV), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Mike Rounds (R-SD).
Read the full letter below and at this link:
Dear Secretary Rollins:
Thank you for your recent work to expand access and reduce burdens within crop insurance, including many provisions in the recently published rule by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation on November 28, 2025, titled “Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP).” However, Section VI has caused great concern amongst our growers. Eliminating the option for producers to purchase additional buy-up coverage for prevented planting is troubling, especially at a time when our farmers need access to all risk management tools available to them.
While Congress has provided ad hoc disaster assistance for producers who experienced prevented planting losses in the past, this type of assistance is never guaranteed nor able to be relied upon, which is why Congress made it clear that “[b]eginning with the 1995 crop year, the Corporation shall offer to producers additional prevented planting coverage…” 7 U.S.C. §1508(h)(6). According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) data, removal of this critical tool impacts over 67 million acres across all 50 states and all covered commodities in 2025 alone.
As we work closely with USDA to get producers through this challenging time, we respectfully ask that USDA reverse this decision and allow producers access to the additional prevented plant coverage for 2027 and beyond to help provide a layer of certainty when disasters beyond their control render them unable to plant a crop.
