News

Changes coming to Livestock Risk Protection program

A livestock economist says some changes are coming to the Livestock Risk Protection program for 2026. University of Kentucky’s Kenny Burdine says four major changes.

He tells Brownfield, beginning July 1, 2025 forward priced cattle can now be covered prior to having physical possession. “Now, potentially they can be covered as soon as you bear price risk,” he says. “So that’s interesting because if I forward price cattle to be delivered to me a month or two down the road, I can go ahead and protect myself for their eventual value as either fat cattle or feeder cattle.”

He says a drought hardship exemption has been added for the 2026 reinsurance year. “If drought worsens in the area where you have the cattle covered after the effective date and you need to sell those cattle sooner,” he says.  “If it worsens enough, you can actually move those cattle more than 60 days before the ending date and still keep the insurance in place.”

Burdine says there were two new coverage types added for LRP, one is “unborn calves”. “I think the weight range on this is 59 pounds to 100 pounds and less than a month of age,” he says.  “This is really designed for beef on dairy cattle. Those dairy operations that do tend to move those calves at a pretty young age.”

He says cull dairy cows were also added to protect the value of dairy cows being removed from the herd and entering the beef system.

Burdine says language has also been added that states those who financially gain from the capture of premium subsidy are considered to be abusing the program.

He says producers should contact their local crop insurance agent for more information on LRP.