Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has implemented the new Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments program (SURE) in accordance with the 2008 Farm Bill. Producers are encouraged to visit their USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) county office beginning on Jan. 4, 2010, to participate in the program if they suffered crop production losses during the 2008 crop year.
To be eligible for SURE, producers must have suffered at least a 10-percent production loss on a crop of economic significance. In addition, producers must meet the risk management purchase requirement by either obtaining a policy or plan of insurance, under the Federal Crop Insurance Act or NAP coverage, for all economically significant crops. For 2008 crops, producers had the opportunity to obtain a waiver of the risk management purchase requirement through a buy-in provision.
Additional information on the SURE program is available from your local FSA office or by visiting www.fsa.usda.gov.