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Agency memo. It refers to an "abnormally dry" year, which doesn't count under the one-in-four rule because prevented planting payments aren't meant to go toward land that is farmable only under abnormal conditions.
• "Crop insurance adjusters and farmers are concerned about the lack of direction provided by RMA regarding what constitutes normal precipitation," said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.
• Hoeven said Willis has assured him that 2012 will not automatically be considered an abnormally dry year across the region -- that insurance claims will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. RMA officials say that is nothing new, and that farmers have misinterpreted the July 2012 memo. Farmers dispute that.
• "There was no misinterpretation," said Dan Wogsland, executive director of the North Dakota Grain Growers Association. "That memorandum said you could not count 2012 because, in RMA's words, it was abnormally dry. That was a blanket statement that we said from the beginning was wrong.
• "It's good to see that RMA has backed off its initial response," he said. "But RMA still hasn't come to the full realization that 2012 is a year that should be totally counted in North Dakota. We're encouraged to see they're making strides."
• Wogsland said that requiring farmers to prove that it was not "abnormally" dry on their farmland last year before they can collect insurance for unplanted ground this year "is making people jump through more hoops that are needless. Needless bureaucracy."
• The Risk Management Agency will not say that 2012 should be automatically counted toward the one-in-four rule because it is up to insurance providers -- not the agency -- to determine a farmer's eligibility, officials said.
• "Producers should work with their insurance agents on a case-by-case basis to make the determination regarding prevented planting claims," agency spokesman John Shea said.
• However, Shea said the agency is willing to work on a better definition of "normal" weather conditions, to ensure a similar issue does not arise in the future.
• "RMA is committed to finding a solution that provides more clarity to farmers and (insurance) companies, and that protects taxpayers moving forward," he said.
• North Dakota had an extremely wet spring. The Risk Management Agency does not yet have figures on the amount of unseeded cropland, but the Federal Farm Service Agency estimates it at 4.4 million acres -- not far from the 2011 record of 5.6 million acres.
• Though the RMA won't declare that 2012 can be a one-in-four year, it's not automatically excluding it, either -- something Hoeven said "solves it for most of our farmers."

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