Prevented planting and late planting considerations for corn and soybeans is the hot topic of the day for many farm producers. With some major acres of corn still unplanted and most of Michigan too wet to plant for several more days. Michigan State University Extension recommends that farms that have purchased crop insurance for this year’s corn crop may want to consider their options. Just two years ago farms were faced with major problems with getting that year’s crop in the ground and now history is repeating itself.
June 5 is the date that farms need to declare to their crop insurance agent if they will not be able to plant their corn crop. For a farm producer using prevented planting for corn, they are in a situation that they are not going to be able to get corn planted this season. Farm producers must start the process by contacting their farms crop insurance agent and letting the agent know that they have may want to take advantage of the prevented planting of corn policy. This will start the process and will provide the opportunity to collect the full benefits for prevented planting that may be allowed as an option in your farms crop insurance policy. Timelines are very important in this process and necessary to keep the farm eligible for the prevented planting policy. A good place to start is a paper just posted by Gary Schnitkey, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois. In addition you can find a template that was designed to help farm producers to quickly estimate the impact of late planting and prevented planting crop insurance options on the University of Illinois web site (farmdocdaily). You can also find a short mp3 recording that covers the important points for a farm to consider at this point in time.
For farms that have unplanted corn acres it is important to work directly with your crop insurance agent as they have all the details for the type of insurance that you have purchased, and can estimate any potential payout for a loss. There are options to collect a prevented planting payment and then shift those acres to soybeans production which would have reduced insurance coverage values. This is where your crop insurance agent can help farm producers to consider options and impacts. The program can get complex if you choose to move to soybeans on the corn acres as it relates to the insurance coverage on that crop. If you are thinking about shifting to dry beans that could be a problem as there are restrictions on that crop being planted on prevented planting acres? You will need to go over your options with your crop insurance agent that has your farms records to see what you can do.
The next big date will be June 15 for soybeans which is the date a farm can declare prevented planting for that crop. We hope that the weather will change and allow farms to catch up on planting of the 2013 crop before the next deadline.
Considerations that farms will want to look at if they are not able to complete planting of corn or soybeans on a timely basis yields are being reduced. As crops are planted later in the season some concerns about the crops ability to mature will be another consideration in the decision what and when to plant. So please remember to notify your crop insurance agent by June 5 for prevented corn plantings and June 15 for prevented soybean planting. If this is not done then you may not qualify for any insurance benefits for prevented planting.
Source : msu.edu