Prevented Planting Buy-Up Elimination and What the Evidence Indicates about Adoption, Actuarial Performance, and Pre-Planting Risk Management Options for Farmers

➩ Summary of the EARP Rule: In November 2025, the USDA Risk Management Agency finalized the Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP) rule, which eliminates the 5% prevented planting buy-up option effective with the 2027 crop year. Prior to 2018, producers could elect up to a 10% buy-up above base prevented planting coverage. The 2018 policy reduced this to 5%. Under EARP, producers can no longer adjust planting-season protection independently of their overall insurance coverage level.

➩ Actuarial Performance of Buy-Up Coverage: Our actuarial analysis finds that after isolating premiums and indemnities associated with Buy-up PP coverage, the resulting loss ratio, indemnities/premiums, from 2011–2024 was 0.82, indicating that on average, the premiums associated with PP buy-up coverage are sufficient to offset any additional indemnities directly attributable to the provision.

➩ Historical Evidence Suggests Incomplete Producer Adjustment: When RMA eliminated the 10% buy-up option in 2018, producer responses were slow and incomplete. Significant upticks in indemnified prevented planting acres in 2020–2022 suggest the prior reduction left an unfilled protection gap. The 2027 elimination will likely repeat this adjustment pattern, leaving producers exposed during the transition period.

➩ Producer Out-of-Pocket Losses are Substantial and Uncompensated: For an indemnified prevented planting acre, eliminating the 5% buy-up generates net losses of $18–26 per corn acre and $14–21 per soybean acre. Ad-hoc disaster programs provide only partial and uncertain offset, leaving residual net losses of $4–24 per acre. Historical prevented planting events in 2020–2021 would have resulted in substantial uncompensated losses under the new rule.

➩ Removal Eliminates Risk Management Tool Without Viable Alternative: Prevented planting buy-ups provided a targeted mechanism for producers to adjust planting-season protection independently. The elimination removes producer flexibility without establishing an equivalent alternative. Producers seeking to maintain equivalent protection must increase overall coverage levels, imposing substantial cost increases and becoming mechanically impossible for those already near the 85% coverage ceiling.

➩ Producers Face High Costs and Limited Options to Maintain Protection: Our analysis shows that if producers want to replace the lost prevented planting protection through higher overall coverage, they will face insurance premium increases of 14–29%, or roughly $2–5 per acre annually. Even with these higher costs, producers who already have the maximum allowed coverage level, 85%, cannot increase their coverage further, meaning they will automatically lose prevented planting protection with no alternative way to restore it within the federal insurance program.

Recommended Citation Format: Francis Tsiboe, Rwit Chakravorty, Dylan Turner, Shawn Arita, and Hongxi Zhao (2026). Prevented Planting Buy-Up Elimination and What the Evidence Indicates about Adoption, Actuarial Performance, and Pre-Planting Risk Management Options for Farmers. ARPC White Paper 2026–02. Agricultural Risk Policy Center, North Dakota State University. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.388968