Adequate Coverage for States and Underserved 

Producers 

Report to Congress in response to section 11108 of the 

Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018
I- Executive Summary:

Federal crop insurance is an equal-opportunity critical component of the safety net for agricultural 

producers. In 2018 Federal crop insurance was utilized on 84 percent of U.S. acres for all commodities 

excluding hay, livestock, nursery, and pasture, range, and forage. The measurement of Federal crop 

insurance coverage is important for gauging where the risk management safety net could be 

strengthened or expanded.

In accordance with Section 11108 of the 2018 Farm Bill, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA)

Risk Management Agency (RMA) conducted two separate analyses to determine where states or 

producer groups were underserved by the Federal crop insurance program. One analysis compared crop 

acreage reported to the RMA with crop acreage estimated by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics 

Service (NASS) to measure if each state by crop was adequately served by crop insurance. A second 

analysis was done using 2017 Census of Agriculture responses to measure crop insurance participation 

among underserved producers. 

RMA’s analysis found a little over 100 state/crop participation rates that met the statutory definition of 

underserved, out of over a thousand state/crop participation rate comparisons. RMA analyzed crop 

insurance participation rates for Beginning, Veteran, Female, African American/Black, Asian American, 

Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Native American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

farmers and ranchers, and found all groups participated in crop insurance at above 50% the rate of all 

producers.

Considering this analysis, RMA has provided an overview of actions taken to date, additional 

recommendations, and other policy options for Congress to consider.
II- Introduction

RMA is providing this report to Congress in accordance with Section 11108 of the Agricultural 

Improvement Act of 2018, or 2018 Farm Bill.

Section 11108 modified Section 508(a)(7) of the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1508(a)(7)) to read:

(7) ADEQUATE COVERAGE FOR STATES AND UNDERSERVED PRODUCERS.—

(A) DEFINITIONS.—In this paragraph: 

(i) ADEQUATELY SERVED.—The term ‘‘adequately served’’ means having a participation 

rate, by crop, that is at least 50 percent of the national average participation rate.

(ii) UNDERSERVED PRODUCER.—The term ‘‘underserved producer’’ means an individual 

(including a member of an Indian Tribe) that is—

(I) a beginning farmer or rancher;

(II) a veteran farmer or rancher; or

(III) a socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher.

(B) REVIEW.—Using resources and information available to the Board or the Secretary, the Board 

shall review the policies and plans of insurance that are offered by approved insurance providers 

under this subtitle, including policies and plans of insurance for underserved producers, to 

determine if each State is adequately served by the policies and plans of insurance.

(C) REPORT.—

(i) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 30 days after completion of the review under 

subparagraph (B), and not less frequently than once every 3 years thereafter, the Board 

shall make publicly available and submit to the Committee on Agriculture of the House 

of Representatives and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the 

Senate a report describing the results of the review. 

(ii) RECOMMENDATIONS.—The report under clause (i) shall include recommendations to 

increase participation in States and among underserved producers that are not 

adequately served by the policies and plans of insurance, including any plans for 

administrative action or recommendations for Congressional action.

Given the statutory definition of adequately served, RMA first calculated both a baseline percentage and 

specific percentage by state for the various crops nationwide. Those that fall below the 50% statutory 

cutoff are shown in Figure 1 below. Methodologies for determining “adequately served” and other 

metrics used in this report are outlined in the Appendix (Section V).
Figure 1. States and Crops Without Adequate Coverage

Commodity

50% of national 

participation

Apples 35%

CA 

34%

GA 

24%

IL 

23%

MA 

34%

MN 

17%

NJ 

18%

NM 

2%

OH 

28%

SC 

20%

TN 

6%

UT 

27%

WV 

29%

WI 

29%

Barley 31%

MD 

16%

MI 

5%

NY 

16%

PA 

9%

SD 

22%

VA 

30%

WI 

15%

Blueberries 29%

AL 

2%

MS 

18%

Buckwheat 18%

MN 

9%

Corn 

Combined 44%

CA 

31%

MT 

38%

NV 

15%

OR 

41%

RI 

33%

UT 

15%

WA 

32%

Cucumbers 11%

FL 

3%

NC 

5%

Dry Beans 44%

CA 

42%

ID 

36%

MT 

42%

TX 

1%

WA 

40%

Dry Peas 45%

OR 

43%

Flax 43%

SD 

41%

Forage 

Production 6%

CO 

1%

ID 

1%

ME 

5%

MI 

4%

NE 

1%

NY 

1%

OR 

1%

PA 

1%

UT 

2%

WA 

2%

Fresh Beans 

Combined 18%

MN 

16%

NJ 

7%

OR 

13%

TX 

13%

WA 

15%

Green Peas 42%

IL 

12%

Grapes 26%

AR 

1%

CT 

1%

MD 

3%

MO 

1%

NE 

9%

NJ 

1%

NC 

17%

OH 

9%

VA 

1%

Mandarins / 

Tangerines 44%

FL 

25%

Mint 11%

OR 

3%

Oats 7%

AL 

6%

CA 

2%

CO 

4%

GA 

5%

ID 

6%

IL 

4%

KS 

3%

MO 

1%

OK 

3%

OR 

6%

TX 

5%

WA 

6%

Onions 39%

NM 

20%

Peaches 

Combined 35%

CT 

17%

KY 

7%

LA 

4%

MA 

33%

OK 

14%

OR 

12%

TN 

29%

UT 

14%

Pecans 18%

FL 

1%

OK 

3%

Pistachios 34%

NM 

31%

Potatoes 36%

NJ 

15%

Sesame 50%

KS 

7%

Sorghum 

Combined 38%

GA 

28%

Sugar Beets 44%

CA 

40%

Tobacco 

Combined 49%

PA 

1%

Tomatoes 

Combined 41%

NJ 

19%

NY 

17%

SC 

7%

TN 

36%

VA 

9%

Triticale 14%

ID 

5%

Wheat 41%

AZ 

39%

CA 

28%

DE 

35%

FL 

13%

GA 

21%

IA 

21%

MD 

26%

NV 

21%

PA 

23%

WV 

33%

Insurance participation by state that is less than 50% of national participation level
The greatest frequency of low state participation rates for field crops was identified for oats, forage, and 

wheat. Several fruit crops including apples, grapes, and peaches were identified to have the most states 

with low participation rates. The participation for oats can appear to be low due to a significant amount 

of the NASS planted oat acreage being intended for purposes other than grain like cover crops. Forage 

production has a very low national participation rate and states with lower amounts of overall forage 

acres tended to have the lowest state participation rates. Low participation for perennial fruit crops

could be the result of RMA limiting insurance offers to select counties in a state or to certain cropping 

practices where production experience demonstrates that insurance would be actuarially sound. 

Perennial crops can also have underwriting controls that limit insurance for new production areas with 

minimum age and production amount requirements that have to be met before acreage becomes 

insurable as opposed to annual crops that are insurable when the crop is planted. 

In addition to states with low crop insurance participation there were also some state and crop 

combinations identified where Federal crop insurance is available, but no producers purchased such 

coverage. These combinations are stated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. States and Crops Where Insurance Coverage is Offered Without Any Insurance Participation

State Commodity NASS Acreage 

Alaska Potatoes 500 

Arizona Chili Peppers 1,100 

Idaho Flax 2,003 

Maryland Forage Production 40,000 

Massachusetts Grapes 173 

Mississippi Grapes 375 

Montana Camelina 792 

New Jersey Forage Production 9,000 

Oregon Mustard 1,066 

South Carolina Blueberries 750 

Tennessee Snap Beans 7,900 

The most common states to have underserved crop seem to be in the west. However, these states also 

have some of the most diverse mixes of different insurable crops being produced. For example, 

California has over 50 different insurable crops.

To analyze the participation rate among underserved producers, RMA used producer responses to the 

2017 NASS Census of Agriculture. RMA included all farms with gross sales over $50,000 in our review.

This was the best data set RMA could locate that would allow the comparison of demographic data on

operators to see if they utilized crop insurance. This method allows RMA to look at participation on an 

operator basis, but not on an acreage basis. RMA is exploring other ways to collect data for future 

versions of this report. This methodology is further explored in Section V.
Figure 3 shows the crop insurance participation rate for each demographic group and the number of 

producers that identified as members of that demographic group with gross sales over $50,000.

Figure 3. Crop Insurance Participation Rates for Different Demographic Groups

Commodity: All Crops

Demographic Group Participation Rate Number of Producers

All Producers 64% 439,060

Beginning Farmer 60% 92,842

Current or Former Military Service 62% 73,870

Female 59% 187,856

African American/Black 51% 2,261

Asian American 45% 4,545

Hispanic/Latino 50% 11,851

Native American/American Indian 43% 4,661

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 38% 506

Attached to this report is Exhibit 1, which shows the information in Figure 3 on an individual crop basis 

for all crops included in the Census of Agriculture. It may be difficult to make valid inferences from 

Exhibit 1 because the Census of Agriculture asks producers about crop insurance participation at a farm 

level, instead of at a crop level. However, if a farm has access to crop insurance for one crop, it means 

they are participating in the program and are able to make decisions about whether they want to use 

crop insurance on other crops where it is available in their area. 

Figure 4 below shows the participation rate for each demographic group compared to the participation 

rate for all producers. Figure 4 can be interpreted by saying that Beginning Farmers participate in crop 

insurance at 94% the rate of all producers. No demographic group participates in crop insurance at 

under 50% of the participation rate of all producers.

Figure 4. Crop Insurance Participation for Underserved Producers Compared to Participation Rates for 

All Producers

Commodity: All Crops

Demographic Group Participation Rate compared to Participation Rate for 

All Producers

Beginning Farmer 94%

Current or Former Military Service 98%

Female 93%

African American/Black 81%

Asian American 72%

Hispanic/Latino 78%

Native American/American Indian 67%

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 59%
III- Current Offerings and Outreach

In an effort to increase the availability of Federal crop insurance in underserved states, RMA has worked 

to expand the availability of existing multi-peril crop insurance policies across the country. Over the 

2018, 2019, and 2020 crop years, RMA expanded insurance availability to 318 additional crop county 

combinations that would not have been available to producers responding to the 2017 NASS Census of 

Agriculture. 

RMA’s regional offices worked collaboratively with regional stakeholders and with the USDA’s Farm 

Service Agency (FSA) to identify areas where expansion was needed and feasible to accomplish these 

expansions. These efforts will continue. Notably, RMA has emphasized expansion of perennial fruit 

programs in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, which should lead to higher participation in those areas 

which are currently underserved as identified in Figure 1.

Additionally, RMA has worked to create and improve existing programs for areas and producers that are 

underserved. RMA’s Pasture, Rangeland and Forage (PRF) insurance program, which allows producers 

who hay or graze land for livestock to purchase protection against rainfall shortages, is a popular and 

affordable program targeted towards livestock and hay producers. The program in particular has been 

popular with Native American tribes. PRF is currently undergoing its own program review and may have 

enhancements in the future. RMA has also done a recent overhaul of our Forage Production and Forage 

Seeding plans of insurance, in the hopes of improving producer participation in both programs.

Additionally, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 removed the congressionally mandated $20 million cap 

on insurance for livestock producers. This has allowed RMA to offer more coverage to livestock 

producers through existing programs like Whole Farm Revenue Protection, Livestock Gross Margin, and 

Livestock Risk Protection. It also made the new Dairy Revenue Protection insurance product feasible. 

This flexibility aids RMA in continuing to develop new products that serve livestock producers. The 

Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Board of Directors also recently approved enhancements to the 

Livestock Gross Margin and Livestock Revenue Protection plans of insurance, including providing those 

producers additional premium subsidy.

For vegetable producers, RMA has updated the record requirements for direct market producers under 

the Whole Farm Revenue Protection insurance policy for 2021. In 2020, there were 2,072 Whole Farm 

Revenue Protection insurance policies sold nationwide, covering over $2.2 billion in liability. Whole Farm 

Revenue Protection is available for 124 different commodities. The 2021 changes were made with the 

intent of making that program more accessible to direct market vegetable producers who told RMA they 

did not keep the records previously required by the program. Along with these changes, RMA has 

designated a national Specialty Crops Coordinator per the instructions of the 2018 Farm Bill. This 

coordinator, along with regional specialty crops coordinators, has been tasked with identifying and 

addressing areas for specialty crop insurance expansion. As part of these efforts, RMA has introduced a 

new plan of insurance called Production and Revenue History (PRH). This policy will help specialty crop 

producers access revenue coverage for their crops, based on their production histories and historical 

prices received. The initial implementation of PRH insurance was for Strawberries in Florida. PRH will 

soon be implemented for fresh market tomatoes, fresh market sweet corn, and fresh market green bell 

peppers.
In addition to expanding and improving our products to meet the needs of underserved areas and 

groups, RMA has also emphasized education about our programs to underserved states and producer 

groups. Until the 2018 Farm Bill, RMA provided additional education and outreach in underserved states 

through cooperative agreements with State Departments of Agriculture, land grant universities, and 

other qualified entities. The funding for these agreements was shifted from RMA to the National 

Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) as part of the 2018 Farm Bill. RMA now works with NIFA in an 

advisory role as they administer this funding. Starting in fiscal year 2021, RMA is reengaging in these 

education and outreach efforts by using funding associated with Section 522 of the Federal Crop 

Insurance Act to enter into cooperative education agreements.

RMA has also worked to help these producers with risk management through partnerships with other 

USDA agencies, including the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) and Natural Resources Conservation 

Service (NRCS). RMA partnered with AMS on a project to enhance market access for fruit and vegetable 

producers by defraying the costs of undergoing voluntary USDA Harmonized Good Agricultural Practices 

(GAP) audits. These food safety audits are an important aspect of any farm marketing plan and will 

mitigate financial risk by expanding the number of market options available to the farm. RMA partnered 

with NRCS to fund high tunnels for producers in underserved states, with an emphasis on urban 

agriculture. High tunnel systems allow crops to be planted several weeks earlier and later and eliminate 

considerable risk from weather and pests.

RMA also provides a specific set of benefits for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers (BFR) to make Federal 

crop insurance more accessible. Figure 3 and Figure 4 above show that of the underserved groups, BFR 

are among the most likely to participate in Federal crop insurance Additionally, the 2018 Farm Bill 

extended these BFR benefits to Veteran Farmers and Ranchers (VFR). These benefits are listed below:

• Exemption from paying the administrative fee for catastrophic and additional coverage policies;

• Additional 10 percentage points of premium subsidy for additional coverage policies that have 

premium subsidy;

• Use of another person’s production history for the specific acreage transferred to you that you 

were previously involved in the decision making or physical activities to produce the crop; and

• An increase in the substitute Yield Adjustment, which allows you to replace a low yield due to an 

insured cause of loss, from 60 to 80 percent of the applicable transitional yield (T-Yield).

The 2018 Farm Bill instructed USDA to create Beginning Farmer Rancher Coordinators for RMA, FSA, 

NRCS, and Rural Development (RD). These coordinators will develop goals and create plans to increase 

beginning farmer participation and access to programs while coordinating nationwide efforts on 

beginning farmers and ranchers. Each state coordinator will receive training and develop beginning 

farmer outreach plans for their state. Coordinators will help field employees to better reach and serve 

beginning farmers and ranchers and will also be available to assist beginning farmers and ranchers who 

need help navigating the variety of resources USDA has to offer. Additionally, the Farm Bill added 

Specialty Crop Liaisons to assist the Specialty Crop Coordinator in RMA. These positions will better help 

identify unique needs of specialty crops which are commonly underserved. RMA recommends using 

these positions as a centerpiece to target expansion to underserved crops and areas.

RMA has also started a contracted study to develop insurance programs for local foods. This research 

was a requirement in the 2018 Farm Bill. RMA will review any findings or recommendations to see how 
our program can be more accessible to local food producers. RMA separately submitted a report on this 

topic to the committees as required. 

RMA also plans to continue to expand the PRH plan of insurance and has been working through the 

specialty crop coordinators to identify specialty crops where PRH could be used as the basis for crops 

that currently do not have a specific policy.

IV- Recommendations and Other Options

To increase program participation by socially disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, RMA is exploring 

ways to give socially disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers access to the benefits, listed in Section III 

above, that are currently available to BFR and VFR. These would include exemption from administrative 

fees, additional premium subsidy, and an increase in the substitute Yield Adjustment. In addition, RMA 

is considering ways to give socially disadvantaged producers a way to adjust their historical yields to 

account for the historical impact of discriminatory lending practices on their operations. 

Additionally, although agents are required to receive training on specialty crops and other topics 

relevant to underserved producers, there is not a major financial incentive involving underserved 

producers in most cases. Congress could also consider incentive options to agents to better market 

insurance options or to sell complex policies like Whole Farm Revenue Protection to these producers. 

RMA is exploring what changes could be made administratively versus those that would require 

Congressional action.

Finally, the Fiscal Year 2022 President’s Budget includes an increase of $9 million in discretionary funds 

for RMA to hire staff devoted to underserved communities, enter into contracts and agreements to 

develop new products for consideration, and to expand risk management education and outreach 

efforts. 

V- Appendix with Methodology:

Adequate Crop Insurance Coverage for States

Methodology (based on acreage):

Insurance availability is typically determined at the county level, and this presents a challenge when 

determining what will count as insurance availability at the State level. For simplicity, it’s assumed that if 

one county has insurance then the State is said to have insurance. Crops that do not have access to crop 

insurance in a particular state are excluded. NASS does provide survey data at the county-level for the 

major field crops, but results are often limited. NASS only reports counties with more than 30 

respondents and 25% of planted acres included, otherwise the county is aggregated to the county 

reporting district and state-level estimates. Therefore, aggregating RMA’s state-level data with NASS 

state-level data provides the most available crop acreage data. There are still cases at even the statelevel where NASS has too few respondents to publish the crop acreage for the state. NASS nationwide 

acreage estimates are unconstrained and include all the acreage for the crop in the United States.
Consideration was made between using NASS survey and NASS Census of Agriculture data. The Census 

of Agriculture is more comprehensive than NASS surveys, however, for row crops and vegetables only 

harvested acres are recorded. For crop that were hit by a natural disaster in 2017, the Census is a poor 

choice for establishing penetration rates. Also, the Census of Agriculture is only conducted every five 

years, with the last being in 2017. 

For field crops and vegetables, the planted and harvested acreage is reported in NASS surveys. When 

NASS conducts acreage surveys, its conducting surveys in states that are major producing areas of the 

crop. For fruits and nuts, the NASS survey and census both provide bearing and non-bearing acres, but 

the census contains more useful state level acreage than surveys. 

Even when using the NASS census or survey, there are certain crops that RMA may have a policy for that 

are not covered in the Census of Agriculture, such as clary sage. Additionally, NASS and RMA may 

classify crops differently, therefore, the crop classifications from one agency may need to be aggregated 

in order to be analogous with the classification from the other agency. For example, RMA has several 

different policies for tobacco based on the variety, while NASS only records “Tobacco” as the 

commodity.

For these reasons the primary NASS data source is the 2018 NASS survey. For field crops and vegetable 

crops the NASS planted acreage survey estimates were used. For fruit and nut crops the NASS bearing 

acres census estimates were used. Some crops don’t have NASS planted acre estimates so the NASS 

harvested acreage estimates were used. These crops include mint, sugarcane, tobacco, and forage 

(alfalfa, alfalfa grass mixture). 

RMA’s Summary of Business acreage for the 2018 crop year was compared to the 2018 NASS survey 

acreage or 2017 census acreage. Comparison was first made with the nationwide totals by crop to 

establish the percentage of insurance participation by crop. This percentage was then multiplied by 50

percent to establish the adequately served baseline for each crop at the state level. Then the RMA 

summary of business acreage by crop for each state was compared to NASS state survey or census crop 

acreage to establish the insurance participation percentage by state and crop. These state/crop 

insurance participation percentages were then compared to the adequately served national/crop 

baseline percentages. Any state/crop insurance participation percentages below the national/crop 

baseline were then identified as not being adequately served. The states and crops without adequate 

coverage is displayed in Figure 1. Several states and crops were identified to having NASS acreage 

estimates with crop insurance available, but no acres were insured in 2018 and are displayed in Figure 2. 

RMA’s Interaction with Underserved Producers

Methodology (based on numbers of producers):

To measure how effectively Federal crop insurance is serving underserved producers, defined by 

Congress as beginning farmers and ranchers, veteran farmers and ranchers, and socially disadvantaged 

farmers and ranchers, RMA used the 2017 Census of Agriculture NASS to look at the percent of 

respondents who identify as beginning farmers and ranchers, veteran farmers and ranchers, or as a 

category considered socially disadvantaged, that say they use crop insurance. 
Typically, RMA analyzes crop insurance participation by comparing total acres estimated by NASS to the 

acres reported to RMA by insured producers. However, RMA could not follow this technique for 

underserved producers, because of the lack of RMA data that contains demographic information. RMA 

does not keep demographic information on program participants. Data is shared between RMA and FSA

containing some demographic information, but this data isn’t as complete as the data available in the 

2017 Census of Agriculture.

NASS provided RMA with Census information by crop, broken down by farm sales class, concerning crop 

insurance participation for farmers and ranchers that are classified as beginning, current or former 

servicemen, female, African American, Asian, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific 

Islander, or Hispanic. NASS also provided RMA with the same dataset for all producers, to serve as a 

baseline. RMA analyzed farms with gross sales over $50,000 in order to focus on participation rates for

farm operations where farming is a primary source of income for the operator. This sales class was 

selected to capture a significant portion of intermediate farms that the Economic Research Service (ERS) 

defines as farms with less than $350,000 in gross cash income and a principal operator whose primary 

occupation is farming. The $50,000 sales class was also selected to provide a balanced comparison of 

family farm insurance participation without being overly weighted by residence farms that ERS defines 

as farms with less than $350,000 in gross farm income and where the principal operator is either retired 

from farming or has a primary occupation other than farming. Overall, the $50,000 sales class of farms 

account for 97% of farm sales nationwide according to NASS. 

If producers provided an answer of more than zero to the 2017 Census of Agriculture question “How 

many acres in this operation were covered under any crop insurance policy in 2017?”, they were 

included as crop insurance participants.

Due to the format of this question, RMA was able to identify if a producer’s operation had some form of 

crop insurance but was unable to determine which specific crops produced under the farming operation 

were insured. This made it difficult to make inferences on an individual crop basis. However, RMA did 

perform this analysis, and this information is included in Exhibit 1. 

If a producer had crop insurance on at least one crop, then they likely had access to a crop insurance 

agent and were able to make decisions about whether or not they wanted insurance for any other 

insurable crops they grew