Small Farm Relief Bill Boosts Disaster Aid to $600K and Simplifies Insurance for Diverse Crops

The Save Our Small Farms Act of 2025 is essentially a massive overhaul of the federal safety net for small-scale and diversified agriculture. It focuses on two main programs: the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) and Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP). The core goal? Cut the bureaucratic red tape that has long shut out small, urban, and specialty crop producers, and create a more responsive disaster safety net.

The Red Tape Reduction Plan

If you run a small farm, especially one with diverse crops or direct-to-consumer sales, this bill is designed to make your life easier. Right now, reporting acreage and production can be a nightmare of paperwork. This bill mandates the Secretary of Agriculture to create a streamlined application process specifically for these diverse operations, letting them file just two acreage reports per year instead of the current complex schedule (Sec. 2). This means less time in the office and more time in the field. Even better, for those in the NAP program, you can now use your IRS Schedule F tax form as sufficient proof of historical revenue, cutting down on the need to maintain separate, complex farm records for insurance purposes.

Bigger Safety Nets for Underserved Farmers

For limited resource, beginning, veteran, or socially disadvantaged farmers, the financial safety net is getting a major upgrade. The maximum payment limit for assistance under NAP is being increased significantly to $600,000 (Sec. 2). This is a huge jump that provides genuine protection against catastrophic loss. Furthermore, the general assistance percentage paid out under NAP is being boosted from 65% to 100% of the loss, meaning that when disaster strikes, the program covers the full loss up to the payment limit. Think of it as going from a 65% deductible to no deductible at all on your disaster aid.

The Push Toward Whole Farm Coverage

One of the bill’s biggest moves is pushing farmers out of the basic NAP program and into the more comprehensive Whole Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) plan. Why? Because WFRP is better suited for farms growing multiple crops. To incentivize this move, the bill offers steep premium discounts for NAP participants who certify they will transition to WFRP: 25% off the first year, and 50% off the second and third years (Sec. 2). It’s a temporary deal to ease the transition. The bill also makes WFRP better by raising the revenue limit for the Micro Farm plan to $1,000,000 or more and making it mandatory to include resource-conserving practices in coverage calculations (Sec. 3), rewarding farmers who use environmentally sound methods like crop rotation.

Disaster Response Gets a Tech Upgrade

Ever had a crop rapidly deteriorate after a storm, but the adjuster couldn't get there in time? For hand-harvested or rapidly deteriorating crops, farmers now have up to 120 hours (five days) to report a loss (Sec. 2). If an in-person adjuster can’t show up within 72 hours, the bill mandates alternatives like remote appraisals using time-stamped photos or drone footage. This is a crucial modernization that acknowledges the speed at which specialty crops can go from salvageable to worthless.

Introducing the Rapid-Payout Weather Policy

Section 4 introduces a brand-new concept: the Single Index Insurance Policy. This policy is designed to cover income losses for virtually any crop based not on the physical damage to your field, but on whether a specific severe weather event—like extreme heat, flooding, or high winds—occurred in your area. The goal is speed. If a covered weather event happens, the policy should pay out within 30 days (Sec. 4). This index-based approach is meant to bypass the long, complex appraisal process, offering quick cash flow when weather disrupts a growing season. Crucially, the coverage must be available nationwide and allows farmers to adjust coverage levels based on their local median income.