The Rural Insurance Bill is progressing in the Chamber of Deputies and could be voted on next week.

Bill 2,951 of 2023, which modernizes Rural Insurance in Brazil, is expected to be on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies next week. The intention, according to the vice-president of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA) in the Chamber of Deputies, Representative Arnaldo Jardim (Cidadania-SP), is for the proposal to be analyzed on Tuesday, the 24th. “Today, specifically on behalf of the president [of the FPA] Lupion, I will communicate to the president [of the Chamber of Deputies] Hugo Motta, first, our gratitude for having appointed our president Lupion as rapporteur. Second, that we are ready to present the report next week and that we wanted, even if it is not a face-to-face session, to be able to vote on it next week,” he stated to journalists at the end of the lunch meeting this Tuesday, the 17th. The bill, authored by Senator Tereza Cristina (PP-MS), introduces changes to three existing laws involving Rural Insurance. The substitute text, with alterations to the version that came from the Senate, will receive suggestions from sector entities this week, but there is already consensus on some modifications. According to Jardim, at least three key points of change are: 1) The use of Rural Insurance as collateral in credit operations, but without making it mandatory, i.e., binding when taking out rural financing; 2) Transferring the management of the Catastrophe Fund to the Ministry of Finance and no longer to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAPA); 3) Guaranteeing differential treatment of tax benefits for production cooperatives that choose to contribute to the Catastrophe Fund. The intention is to make specific changes to the wording of the text to avoid substantive changes, which would lead to the bill returning to the Federal Senate. There is also a precaution to protect the project from questions and interpretations after approval in the National Congress. :: Insurance as a mandatory expense There are also other points, such as making expenses related to the Rural Insurance Premium Subsidy Program (PSR) mandatory. A preliminary analysis by the Chamber's legislative consultancy indicated that this aspect could be questioned on the grounds that the matter would increase expenses and would be of a budgetary nature. Therefore, a redrafting adjustment is also being proposed. The idea is to revert to the original wording, which would place this expense under the heading of official credit operations of the Ministry of Finance. Other agricultural policy expenses, such as the Agricultural Activity Guarantee Program (Proagro), fall under this same classification, making it easier to understand that this is not an increase in expenses. Last year, of the R$ 1.06 billion approved for the Rural Insurance Program (PSR), approximately R$ 565 million was spent. The remainder was frozen. The sector and the parliamentary group have a long-standing demand: to make the resources for the Rural Insurance subsidy a mandatory expense, which would prevent the freezing of these funds and the non-compliance with the budget allocated to the initiative. In 2025, agricultural insurance had its worst performance in terms of insured area since 2015. According to data from the National Confederation of Insurance Companies (CNSeg), Brazil registered 3.2 million hectares insured — 3.27% of the planted area. In 2015, there were 2.6 million hectares — 3.32% of the planted area at the time.

This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.