Biotech Yield Endorsement (BYE), co-submitted by Western Agricultural Insurance Company and Monsanto Company, is the first-of-its-kind crop insurance product that's based upon the risk management benefits of advanced seed technologies. BYE offers eligible corn producers a decrease in crop insurance premium when they plant at least 75 percent of their non-irrigated corn acres using certain hybrid biotech seed.* BYE was approved by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) and is administered by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

*Developed and licensed by Monsanto Company.

Qualifications for BYE include purchasing a farm-based yield and revenue crop insurance product — Revenue Assurance, Crop Revenue Coverage or Multiple Peril Crop Insurance — at a buy-up level of coverage, and planting at least 75 percent of your insured acres within each insured unit to non-irrigated corn for grain qualifying hybrids that contain YieldGard VT Triple^TM and/or YieldGard Plus^® with Roundup Ready^® Corn 2. Only planted (including replanted) acreage — not prevented planting acreage — is eligible for BYE in Basic, Optional, Enterprise or Whole Farm units. You must also continue to follow current Environmental Production Agency (EPA) refuge requirements, and will be subject to spot checks or audits to ensure compliance with program requirements.

The insurance premium on the yield risk component of crop insurance can be reduced by an average of 14 percent — or more than $2 per acre for each qualifying unit on crop insurance premium — depending on coverage level and other variables, such as Actual Production History (APH). Each year, the premium discount will be reviewed and recalculated, as appropriate, based upon additional field test data from Monsanto and loss data collected by the RMA.

Research, backed by three years of comprehensive data from thousands of field trials, confirms that Monsanto’s YieldGard^® Triple Technology reduces annual production risk and increases yield. Only YieldGard VT Triple^TM and YieldGard Plus^® with Roundup Ready^® Corn 2 are eligible for a crop insurance premium discount offered to qualified producers who purchase the Biotech Yield Endorsement. The triple-stack genetically traited corn, or seeds that feature three biotechnology genes, protect against:

• Above ground lepidopteron pests
  (i.e., moths and their larvae)
• Below ground corn rootworm damage
• Weeds via spraying of glyphosate
  (i.e., Round-up)

Contact your crop insurance agent for more information and to elect the program. The final required documentation will be due when you provide acreage reporting information. On or before the acreage reporting deadline of June 30 for Iowa and Minnesota, and July 15 for Illinois and Indiana, you must provide your agent with a completed, signed and dated BYE Insured's Certification Statement and a BYE Seed Dealer Certification Statement from each seed dealer you purchase qualifying seed from. Copies of purchase and return seed invoices must also be attached to the corresponding BYE Seed Dealer Certification Statement(s). Your agent and seed dealer can provide you with this information and all necessary paperwork.