Pandemic Cover Crop Program (PCCP)

Overview

This functionality does not apply to the selected Reinsurance Year; it only applies to 2022 and 2021. To see details about this program, select either 2022 or 2021 from the Reinsurance Year dropdown.

The Pandemic Cover Crop Program (PCCP) is offered nationally by USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA), helps farmers maintain their cover crop systems, despite the financial challenges posed by the pandemic. The PCCP is part of USDA’s Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative, a bundle of programs to bring financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and producers who felt the impact of COVID – 19 market disruptions. The PCCP provides premium support to producers who insured their spring crop with most insurance policies and planted a qualifying cover crop during the 2021 and 2022 crop years. The premium support is $5 per acre (acres X subsidy $5 x insured share) but no more than the full premium owed.

Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa have existing programs for producers to receive a premium benefit for planting cover crops. In these states, participating producers will receive an additional benefit. For an updated listing of what Cover Crops qualify, see FSA Handbook 2-CP.

All cover crops reportable to FSA are eligible and include cereals and other grasses, legumes, brassicas, and other non-legume broadleaves, and mixtures of two or more cover crop species planted at the same time.

To receive the benefit for this program, producers will not need to sign-up, but they will need to file a Report of Acreage form (FAS-578) for cover crops with USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) . The cover crop fields report on the Report of Acreage form must match what the producer reported to their insurance company for Federal crop insurance policies.

• PCCP is not available for Enhance Coverage Option (ECO), Hurricane Insurance Protection – Wind Index (HIP-WI), and Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO). Stacked Income Protection (STAX) and Margin Protection (MP) policies are ONLY eligible for PCCP when insured as a standalone policy. STAX and MP endorsements to underlying policies ARE NOT eligible for PCCP.
• PCCP WILL NOT change acreage reporting dates, reporting requirements, or any other terms of the crop insurance policy.
• PCCP benefits will not apply to any producer who is out of compliance with Conservation Compliance. If a Grower is "Out of Compliance", we believe RMA may continue to pass AIPs the PCCP subsidy values. The changes under this ticket will NOT sum the P11 PccpAdditionalSubsidy values to a coverage total if the grower is out of compliance. If the grower is initially "In Compliance" and then his status changes to "Out of Compliance", the System will remove any previously summed values on the MpciCoverage table.
• States that maintain their own cover crop program now include a supplemental, dollar-for-dollar Federal match in addition to any base PCCP eligibility. Therefore, a producer in a participating State may receive up to $5/ac in base PCCP, an amount per acre established by the State, and an additional amount of PCCP equal to the amount established by the State.” (Product Management Bulletin: PM-22-014)

The RMA determined subsidy will be imported as part of the PASS return file and stored in a new field in the database, similar to the way state subsidies are handled. A Mark Complete process that is triggered by the import of the RMA return file will then sum these RMA-determined values to a total for the coverage. The summed value(s) for the coverage (s) will be included on the Billing Statement with the required description from the MOU.

 

 

This functionality does not apply to the selected Reinsurance Year.