WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Jahana Hayes (CT-05), joined by Congressman John Larson (CT-01), Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), and Congressman Jim Himes (CT-04), reintroduced the Save Our Small (SOS) Farms Act of 2025. This legislation improves the farm safety net and expands federal crop insurance by allowing small farms to better access crop insurance policies often limited to large commercial farms to protect their business.
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) have introduced provisions of this legislation in the Senate.
Extreme weather and other disasters can cause severe losses for farms lacking crop insurance, forcing them to depend on disaster relief. This disproportionately affects small farms, which often cannot access insurance. A recent survey by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture revealed that Connecticut farmers have lost over $50 million due to weather-related events in 2023 and 2024. The SOS Farms Act aims to provide a stronger safety net by expanding the number of farms eligible to purchase crop insurance, lower coverage costs for small farms, and directing the USDA to develop more responsive coverage options for farmers during extreme weather.
According to the nationwide 2022 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census of Agriculture, only 5% of Connecticut farms are enrolled in crop insurance, compared to 19% of farms nationally.
“In the Fifth District, small farms help feed our communities and drive our economy. Although these farmers need assistance, our crop insurance and disaster programs too often leave them behind. And as we continue to see extreme weather patterns becoming more frequent, we must find new solutions to ensure small farm operators are protected before disasters strikes,” said Congresswoman Hayes. “The SOS Farms Act would expand coverage and assistance, lower costs for small farmers, and direct the USDA to develop more responsive coverage options. Small farms are an essential part of our culture, environment, and economy.”
“Climate change has made it abundantly clear that we need a stronger safety net for farmers when floods, drought or other natural disasters strike. Our measure makes necessary reforms to programs that simply do not work for farmers by making coverage and assistance more accessible and affordable than before. Small farms are an essential part of Connecticut’s culture, environment, and economy—they deserve the best protection and support to recover from devastating storms,” said Senator Blumenthal.
“Small farmers in Connecticut work hard to keep their businesses running, but don’t have adequate insurance programs to protect them when extreme storms and droughts wipe out their crops. This legislation would make disaster assistance and insurance more affordable and effective, so local farmers aren’t left behind when disaster hits,” said Senator Murphy.
"After the Connecticut River Valley was devastated by severe flooding during the summer of 2023, many small farms throughout the region lost hundreds of acres of crops,” said Congressman Larson. “The Save our Small Farms Act will better tailor our nation’s crop insurance programs to the unique needs of small to midsized farmers. Our bill will make crop insurance more affordable and accessible and reduce the paperwork burdens our farmers face to access support when disaster strikes. The entire Connecticut delegation will continue to stand together with our farmers, so they get the support they deserve and are not left on their own to pick up the pieces after a natural disaster.”
“More and more farmers across Connecticut are facing the devastating impacts of extreme weather events. Unfortunately, the broken federal crop insurance system has let smaller farms fall through gaps in coverage and left them on the hook with major losses. The Save Our Small Farms Act reforms the crop insurance system and provides small farmers with the safety net they need to access assistance programs and recover from damages that come at no fault of their own. I look forward to once again working with my colleagues from Connecticut to ensure this issue receives the attention it deserves in Congress,” said Congressman Courtney.
“As the backbone of our food system, small farms deserve fair access to the resources they need to thrive,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “Each year, as the climate crisis intensifies, unforeseen and catastrophic weather events are becoming more and more common. This makes our efforts to protect our farmers crucial, which is why I am a strong supporter of The Save Our Small Farms Act, which will guarantee that federal programs serve all farmers, not just the largest operations. This legislation is necessary to address the gaps in our current farm safety net. I am proud to support this legislation aimed at bolstering our agricultural economy, safeguarding local producers, and creating a more resilient food supply.”
“Each year seems to bring worse storms than the last, with Connecticut’s small farmers incurring ever-steeper crop losses because of increasingly common severe weather. The Save our Small Farms Act expands crop insurance options for small farmers and improves how the federal government provides disaster aid in times of crisis. This is a commonsense bill that brings federal agricultural policy in line with the realities of climate change and the hardships our nation’s small farmers face,” said Congressman Himes.
Specifically, the SOS Farms Act:
- Creates a streamlined application process to the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), which offers farmers the opportunity to purchase coverage for losses due to natural disasters in areas where crop insurance is unavailable. The bill provides new authority to USDA to launch pilot projects to address emerging needs and to improve data collection to support the development of new crop insurance policies.
- Producers may not be able to find an insurance policy that covers any or all of their crops, or insurance premiums may be prohibitively expensive.
- Paperwork requirements, premiums, and service fees have often kept small farms from accessing NAP coverage.
2. Directs the Farm Service Agency to create an on-ramp from NAP coverage to a true insurance policy under the Whole Farm Revenue Protection Program (WFRP), the most comprehensive crop insurance program for small and mid-sized farms.
3. Expands WFRP to allow smaller farms to better access crop insurance policies by:
- Reducing paperwork requirements for applicants.
- Allowing policies for farms that use crop-rotation.
- Modifies insurance plans to improve effectiveness for specialty crop and diversified farms.
- Increases response timeliness of insurance applications.
- Requires providers and the Risk Management Agency to account for different cultivation cycles for different crops when calculating premium discounts.
- Authorizing the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to study WFRP participation by small farms that sell to local or regional markets.
- Expanding the network of insurance agents selling crop insurance policies to small farms through increased compensation
4. Directs USDA to develop an index-based insurance policy that is responsive to crop and income losses due to extreme weather events.
- A weather index-based insurance policy uses extreme weather events as a proxy for agricultural income losses.
- This approach reduces paperwork while making the policy more responsive to losses from adverse weather conditions.
- Insurance would also be based on a farm’s income instead of the price of its crops, better aligning payouts with income losses associated with crop losses.
- Since payouts are automatically triggered by a weather event, producers would not have to fill out paperwork or wait months to receive support following a natural disaster.
The SOS Farms Act is endorsed by the following organizations: California Climate and Agriculture Network, California FarmLink, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Community Farm Alliance, Dakota Rural Action, Environmental Working Group, Farm Action, Farm Aid, Farm to Table - New Mexico, Farmshare Austin, Friends of Family Farmers, HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, Illinois Stewardship Alliance, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Kiss the Ground, Land for Good, Land Stewardship Project, Maine Farmland Trust, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Marbleseed, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Michigan Food and Farming Systems, Midwest Farmers of Color Collective, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), National Young Farmers Coalition, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire (NOFA-NH), Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, Organic Farming Association, Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, Regenerate America, Renewing the Countryside, Rogue Farm Corps, Rural Advancement Foundation International, Rural Coalition, Sierra Club, Sustainable Food Center, World Farmers.
A one-pager of the SOS Farms Act can be found here, and the full bill text can be found here.