Risk Management Agency Administrator Brandon Willis addresses the National Crop Insurance Services convention in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Monday. (National Crop Insurance Services/Laurie Langstraat)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Agriculture Department’s Risk Management Agency has scheduled its first meeting with the crop insurance industry on implementation of the 2014 farm bill on February 27, a key crop insurance industry official said here today.

Changes to the crop insurance program need to be in place for the 2015 crop year.

“Step one is just meetings, meetings, meetings,” Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance Service, the industry research group, said in an interview.

Zacharis said he has no fears about being able to implement the new cotton supplemental insurance program known as STAX, to add the enhancements to other crop insurance programs that Congress has mandated, or to work on the research projects and new policies that Congress has called for.

Noting that the industry has implemented major changes to the 1980 crop insurance act over the years, Zachaarias said, “It is just rolling up your sleeves. It is what we do.”

The crop insurance industry also has more personnel than ever before, with 2,000 to 2,500 employees on the staffs of the companies, 15,000 agents and 5,000 loss adjusters, he said.

On Monday RMA Administrator Brandon Willis told the crop insurance industry convention that he has full confidence his staff “will get this done right.”

Willis said RMA’s first priorities will be to write the rules for the Stacked Income Protection plan for cotton (STAX) and the Supplemental Coverage Option known as SCO.

Industry officials said the main issue with the STAX program, which will replace other cotton programs that the World Trade Organization found violated trade rules, is how it will be actuarily rated.

“If RMA can get a lot of this work done by mid summer, they will be in good shape,” said Keith Collins, the former USDA chief economist who is a consultant to NCIS.

Collins noted that the new farm bill — the Agriculture Act of 2014 — “is a very positive thing” for crop insurance because “it does not undo any of those programs, doesn’t change lines of insurance that are available, it enhances the existing portfolio of products, adds new products, and makes some more flexible so farmers can tailor crop insurance to meet the risks of their farms.”

Collins noted that in addition to enhancing current crop insurance and adding STAX and SCO, the bill:

• Authorizes the development of margin products, specifically rice and catfish margin insurance.
• Directs the development of insurance products for sweet sorghum and sorghum for renewable energy and biofuels.
• Calls for a peanut revenue insurance product.
• Prioritizes research on specialty crops.
• Requires feasibility studies on products to address business interruption risks that are not authorized under current crop insurance law, including policies that would indemnify farmers for losses due to food recalls and indemnify poultry producers in the event of integrator bankruptcy.

Zacharis and Collins said that Congress did not include any directives to develop insurance for marijuana, which is now being grown legally in some states even though it remains illegal under federal law.

Zacharias said any policy on marijuana would have to take into account whether it is grown in doors or outdoors, and that “it would be up to someone in the private sector” to develop it and present it to RMA for consideration.