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).
Click here to see more...