The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) will host a national webinar on January 23, 2014.  The webinar will address the important question: when and how can you terminate your cover crops and not risk losing crop insurance coverage of cash crops that follow?

Why is this important?  More than ever before, farmers are planting cover crops because they retain soil moisture, reduce erosion, and maximize profitability.  Given these and other recognized benefits of cover crops, USDA directed an interagency task force to put together cover crop termination guidelines so farmers who use cover crops do not risk losing their crop insurance coverage, as has unfortunately happened in the past.  The new guidelines are available by clicking here.

The webinar will feature short presentations by experts in cover crops and crop insurance policy.  They will explain the new cover crop termination guidelines and then answer any questions from webinar participants about how these new guidelines will affect farmers on the ground.

The webinar is funded in part by the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) through the Risk Management Education Partnership Program.  Speakers include:

Rob Myers – Regional Director of Extension Programs, North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)
Tim Hoffmann – Director of Product Administration and Standards Division, Risk Management Agency (RMA)
Norm Widman – National Agronomist, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
Jeff Schahczenski – Ag Policy and Funding Research Director, NCAT

The webinar will take place on Thursday, January 23rd 2014 from 2:00 – 3:30pm EST

Presentations will last until approximately 2:30pm, with the remaining time for Q&A.

The webinar is free and open to the public by clicking here.
Farmers utilizing cover crops or considering cover crops are particularly encouraged to participate.

For more information, see our press release on the webinar.