For farmers wanting to insure a grain crop in 2013, certain rules applied to the treatment of cover crops for emergency forage this summer. The existing rule stated that if the forage/cover crop will be harvested in the spring of 2013, then that crop cannot be insured.

This rule has been changed temporarily in order to help livestock farmers impacted by the drought to produce more forage.

In the spring of 2013, a farmer may harvest a forage/cover crop planted the previous summer/fall/winter, and then insure the following grain crop.

The USDA has changed rules regarding grazing and haying land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.