Insured Acreages Vary Widely Across Fruit and Nut Specialty Crops

USDA's Economic Research Service reported this week insured acres of specialty crops vary widely across specific crop types.  USDA’s Risk Management Agency offers Federal Crop Insurance Program products to cover specialty crops in counties with enough data available to offer a sound insurance product.

Using cherries as an example, crop insurance is available for cherry growers who operate in counties with a high number of cherry acres.  Because of this, farmers used federal crop insurance to cover about 65% of all cherry acres.  Cherry growers outside of those counties used the USDA Farm Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program to cover about 20% of all cherry acres, leaving only 15% of acres not covered by any risk management program.  For some crops, however, federal risk management programs covered only a small portion of acres.

Kiwifruits and strawberries, for example, had less than 15% of acres covered, while hazelnuts had less than 1%.

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