Margin Crop Insurance Available Across the Southern Region

Oct 15, 2025

By Hunter Biram

As harvest progresses and crop prices stay at historical lows, it is difficult to consider risk management for 2026. The federal crop insurance program offers a tool that can currently provide a form of county-level revenue protection. Margin Protection (MP) crop insurance was made available for a variety of crops across the southeast region in 2024. MP is an area-level (i.e., county-level) crop insurance product designed to provide risk protection against the risk of thin margins using a combination of county yields, futures prices, and region-specific input usage.

Coverage levels range from 70% to 95% and may be purchased with any individual insurance, such as Yield Protection (YP) or Revenue Protection (RP). It may not be purchased with Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) or Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) (see Biram and Connor, 2023). Additionally, there is a new product offering similar to ECO and MP called Margin Coverage Option (MCO), which I will provide more details on below.

For certain crops/regions the sales closing date (SCD) for MP coverage is similar to other traditional products, However, in some cases there is an early SCD and price discovery window. This early window offers the opportunity to lock in prices sooner if you think that might be an advantage to the normal spring price discovery. Check here for MP SCD’s and price discovery windows.

The earlier price discovery window offered by MP (August 15, 2025, to September 14, 2025), provides corn and soybean producers with the option to buy MP and lock in futures prices, if they think that might be an advantage over the normal price discovery window (January 15, 2026, through February 14, 2026).

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Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.