Stacking Risk Tools: PRF, Annual Forage and LRP
For livestock producers, managing risk often means using more than one tool. Three insurance programs — Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage (PRF); Annual Forage (AF); and Livestock Risk Protection (LRP) — can be good options to complement each other to protect both feed supply and livestock value.
PRF insurance helps offset the financial impact of below-average rainfall during the growing season. It’s based on a rainfall index, not actual forage yield, but it can provide timely payments when drought limits grazing potential.
Annual Forage insurance covers forage crops planted annually for feed or grazing, such as small grains or cover crops. It offers protection against precipitation shortfalls during specific growing seasons, making it especially useful for diversified or integrated systems.
Livestock Risk Protection provides price protection for cattle and swine. It works much like a put option, allowing producers to set a price floor for their livestock while still benefiting if markets improve.
Used together, these tools create a more complete risk management plan: PRF and AF help stabilize feed resources, while LRP protects market value. The goal isn’t to eliminate risk entirely but to manage it in a way that improves cash flow and business stability through variable weather and market cycles.
Producers can work with an insurance agent familiar with RMA programs to find the right mix for their operation and budget.
Grazing for Interseeding
Pastures and hay meadows provide higher quality feed, are more productive, and require fewer inputs when they have good forage legumes growing in them.
Outside of moisture, nitrogen is often the limiting nutrient in pasture production. Commercial fertilizer may be a quick option, but it’s costly. Instead, let’s grow our own nitrogen using legumes.
Do you have a relatively weed-free pasture area or hay meadow that makes up no more than 15% of your total pasture acres? If so, here is what I want you to do. From now until grass stops growing this year, graze it hard. Grub it down, then graze it some more.
Now why would I recommend overgrazing? Sure, it will hurt the grass, but that's exactly what we want. Next spring, you will interseed legumes like red clover, white clover and alfalfa into that grass to make it more nutritious and productive. Late-winter frost seeding may even be an option.
The biggest challenge to establishing legumes in a grass sod is competition from existing grass with slow-growing legume seedlings. Anything you do to reduce competition and slow down grass growth will help. Grazing hard this fall will weaken the grass and slow its spring growth, giving new legume seedlings a better chance to get started. Areas that experienced drought this summer may have seen unplanned overgrazing, and interseeding may be a way to make lemonade out of that lemon. Just be careful not to further stress drought-weakened stands. Of course, all this depends on moisture next spring.
While you’re at it, collect some soil samples and apply any needed fertilizer. Legumes especially need good phosphorus and potassium levels and the proper soil pH.
So, add some legumes to your pasture next spring. Graze your grass short this fall, and the legumes you add next spring will establish better because of it.
