The Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) helps you manage risk through coverage for both crop losses and crop planting that was prevented due to natural disasters. The eligible or “noninsured” crops include agricultural commodities not covered by federal crop insurance.   

You must be enrolled in the program and have purchased coverage for the eligible crop in the crop year and county in which the loss incurred to receive program benefits following a qualifying natural disaster.

 The next closing deadline for New Jersey is November 20th for apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, caneberries, grapes, blueberries, onion, and scallions.  New Jersey coverage deadlines by closing date.

NAP Buy-Up Coverage Option

NAP offers higher levels of coverage, from 50 to 65 percent of expected production in 5 percent increments, at 100 percent of the average market price. Buy-up levels of NAP coverage are available if the producer can show at least one year of previously successfully growing the crop for which coverage is being requested.

Producers of organics and crops marketed directly to consumers also may exercise the “buy-up” option to obtain NAP coverage of 100 percent of the average market price at the coverage levels of between 50 and 65 percent of expected production.

NAP basic coverage is available at 55 percent of the average market price for crop losses that exceed 50 percent of expected production.   

Buy-up coverage is not available for crops intended for grazing.

NAP Service Fees

For all coverage levels, the NAP service fee is the lesser of $325 per crop or $825 per producer per county, not to exceed a total of $1,950 for a producer with farming interests in multiple counties. 

NAP Fee Waivers and Premium Reductions

Qualified veteran farmers or ranchers are eligible for a service fee waiver and premium reduction, if the NAP applicant meets certain eligibility criteria.

Beginning, limited resource and targeted underserved farmers are eligible for a waiver of NAP service fees and premium reductions when they file form CCC-860, “Socially Disadvantaged, Limited Resource and Beginning Farmer or Rancher Certification.”

Related Losses

NAP covers losses for the crop(s) you lose; losses to your  trees, vines a bushes may be eligible for financial assistance through the Tree Assistance Program (TAP) which assists orchardists and nursery tree growers with the replanting or rehabilitating eligible trees, bushes, and vines lost by natural disasters.

For NAP application, eligibility and related program information, contact your USDA Service Center or visit fsa.usda.gov/nap

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The Next Generation Farmer Program is seeking input from anyone who thinks they have great ideas for how the SADC can support existing efforts and implement a collaborative, comprehensive system to identify, train, equip, and support the next generation of farmers in New Jersey.

Your input is crucial in this collective effort. To share your feedback, please choose and complete the survey that is most appropriate to you:

  1. Next Generation Farmer - https://forms.office.com/g/70kKb7kb1v  

  2. Established Farmer - https://forms.office.com/g/CyjViynBNt

  3. Agriculture Service Provider - https://forms.office.com/g/dPtBdx0wGQ

  4. Other Interested Party - https://forms.office.com/g/0HjpF0qFkz

By Spring 2025, the SADC will develop a detailed report utilizing information gathered from this outreach and research with recommendations for addressing the challenges and enhancing support for beginning farmers.

For more information on the Next Generation Farmer Program, to share comments, or to learn about outreach events, visit www.nj.gov/agriculture/sadc/nextgen/ or contact Brendon.pearsall@ag.nj.gov or Jessica.brandeisky@ag.nj.gov. 

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Interviewers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will interview more than 680 vegetable growers in the northeastern region to gather information for the 2024 Vegetable Chemical Use Survey this fall.

The survey will collect information on bearing acreage, pest management practices, acres treated, and application rates, fertilizer and pesticide application, acres treated, and rates applied to 12 vegetable crops. In addition to Pennsylvania, New York & New Jersey, vegetable growers in 12 other states will also hear from NASS as the agency collects comprehensive U.S. vegetable production practices information.

“Growers benefit from providing their information because the resultant data will illustrate the industry’s environmental practices and assure the quality of U.S. food to consumers here and around the world,” said Kevin Pautler, acting director of the NASS, Northeastern Regional Field Office. “I encourage every grower to take the time to respond, if they receive this survey.”

The data will paint a detailed picture of fertilizer, pesticide use, and other pest management practices used by the vegetable growers across the nation. To conduct the survey, NASS representatives will call growers to arrange phone or in-person interviews. Growers are encouraged to have their spray records available for reference. If these services were contracted, growers should be prepared to give consent to access these records.

NASS safeguards the privacy of all respondents. The information growers provide will be used for statistical purposes only. In accordance with federal law, responses will be kept confidential and will not be disclosed in identifiable form.

The data will be published online in NASS’s Quick Stats database next year. This database and all NASS reports are available on nass.usda.gov. For more information on NASS surveys and reports, call the NASS, Northeastern Regional Field Office at 1-800-498-1518.

NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture.
USDA

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This is likely no surprise to you, but drought persists across New Jersey and is intensifying in some areas. No geographic area is immune to the potential of drought at any given time.

The U.S. Drought Monitor provides a weekly drought assessment, and it plays an important role in USDA programs that help farmers and ranchers recover from drought.

Fact #1 - Numerous agencies use the Drought Monitor to inform drought-related decisions.

The map identifies areas of drought and labels them by intensity on a weekly basis. It categorizes the entire country as being in one of six levels of drought. The first two, None and Abnormally Dry (D0), are not considered to be drought. The next four describe increasing levels of drought: Moderate (D1), Severe (D2), Extreme (D3) and Exceptional (D4). 

While many entities consult the Drought Monitor for drought information, drought declarations are made by federal, state and local agencies that may or may not use the Drought Monitor to inform their decisions. Some of the ways USDA uses it to determine a producer’s eligibility for certain drought assistance programs, like the Livestock Forage Disaster Program and Emergency Haying or Grazing on Conservation Reserve Program acres and to “fast-track” Secretarial drought disaster designations.

Fact #2 - U.S. Drought Monitor is made with more than precipitation data.

When you think about drought, you probably think about water, or the lack of it. Precipitation plays a major role in the creation of the Drought Monitor, but the map’s author considers numerous indicators, including drought impacts and local insight from over 450 expert observers around the country. Authors use several dozen indicators to assess drought, including precipitation, streamflow, reservoir levels, temperature and evaporative demand, soil moisture and vegetation health. Because the drought monitor depicts both short and long‐term drought conditions, the authors must look at data for multiple timeframes. The final map produced each week represents a summary of the story being told by all the pieces of data. To help tell that story, authors don’t just look at data. They converse over the course of the map-making week with experts across the country and draw information about drought impacts from media reports and private citizens.

Fact #3 - A real person, using real data, updates the map.

Each week’s map author, not a computer, processes and analyzes data to update the drought monitor. The map authors are trained climatologists or meteorologists from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (the academic partner and website host of the Drought Monitor), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and USDA. The author’s job is to do what a computer can’t – use their expertise to reconcile the sometimes-conflicting stories told by each stream of data into a single assessment.

Fact #4 - The Drought Monitor provides a current snapshot, not a forecast.

The Drought Monitor is a “snapshot” of conditions observed during the most recent week and builds off the previous week’s map. The map is released on Thursdays and depicts conditions based on data for the week that ended the preceding Tuesday. Rain that falls on the Wednesday just before the USDM’s release won’t be reflected until the next map is published. This provides a consistent, week‐to‐week product and gives the author a window to assess the data and come up with a final map.

Fact #5 – Your input can be part of the drought-monitoring process.

State climatologists and other trained observers in the drought monitoring network relay on-the-ground information from numerous sources to the US Drought monitor author each week. That can include information that you contribute.

The Drought Monitor serves as a trigger for multiple forms of federal disaster relief for agricultural producers, and sometimes producers contact the author to suggest that drought conditions in their area are worse than what the latest drought monitor shows. When the author gets a call like that, it prompts them to look closely at all available data for that area, to see whether measurements of precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and other indicators corroborate producer-submitted reports. This is the process that authors follow whether they receive one report or one hundred reports, although reports from more points may help state officials and others know where to look for impacts.

There are multiple ways to contribute your observations:

1. Talk to your state climatologist - Find the current list at the American Association of State Climatologists website.
2. Email - Emails sent to droughtmonitor@unl.edu inform the USDM authors.
3. Become a CoCoRaHS observer - Submit drought reports along with daily precipitation observations to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network.
4. Submit Condition Monitoring Observer Reports (CMOR) - go.unl.edu/CMOR.

For more information, read our Ask the Expert blog with a NDMC climatologist or visit farmers.gov/protection-recovery.

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Come join me, Bob Andrzejczak, State Executive Director for the New Jersey Farm Service Agency, at the Annual New Jersey Farm Bureau Convention on Monday November 18^th at 4pm for an informational session discussing:

• the importance of County Committee’s and  participation in the election process,
• the benefits of reporting crop acreage to the agency on an annual basis, and
• the new rules that improved our farm loan process that went into effect late September.

Take note of the convention’s new location at the Double Tree by Hilton Cherry Hill/Philadelphia - 2349 Marlton Pike W, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002. Please see the convention’s agenda for more details on our session.