Soybeans: access to differentiated rural insurance subsidies requires compliance with a new climate risk zoning format.

Soybean farmers who wish to access the differentiated subsidy of the Rural Insurance Premium Subsidy Program (PSR) through the Agricultural Zoning of Climatic Risk Management Levels (ZarcNM) should begin preparations now. ZarcNM will be available in the next harvest season in a second phase of the pilot project for soybean cultivation in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Mato Grosso do Sul. The first step for those wishing to enter the program is to have their soil analyzed at one of the laboratories accredited to operate SiNM, a platform developed by Embrapa to indicate the management level. The analysis for ZarcNM measures base saturation, calcium content, and aluminum saturation. After conducting the soil analysis, the farmer must contact a rural insurance contract operator, which can be a cooperative, bank, brokerage firm, or other entity. The contract operator will be responsible for entering information about the producer and the plot to be insured into SiNM. The operator is also responsible for contracting remote sensing assessments to quantify the area of soil cover and verify the crop history of the last three years. With all the information entered into the system, SiNM calculates the management level of the plot, and the contract operator forwards the information to the government so that the subsidy can be made according to the management level (NM). For NM 4, the subsidy for the 2026/2027 soybean crop will be 40%. For NM3 it will be 35%, 30% for NM2, and 20%, which is the PSR standard, for NM1. “Insurance contracts for the 2026/2027 crop have already begun to be negotiated. Therefore, producers, cooperatives, and insurance companies wishing to participate in phase 2 of the pilot project need to act quickly. The sooner the insurance is contracted, the greater the possibility of accessing subsidies and better coverage conditions,” warns Hugo Borges Rodrigues, General Coordinator of Agricultural Risk at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. “The goal is that, at the time of contracting soybean insurance, the producer already has the classification of the plot's management level available in Embrapa's SiNM system, as this allows insurance companies to use the information in risk pricing and also allows the producer to access PSR resources in advance with differentiated subsidy percentages,” he explains. Beyond soybean cultivation, the ZarcNM pilot project will be expanded to second-crop corn in Paraná and Mato Grosso do Sul. In this case, the subsidy will be 40% for NM1, 45% for NM2, and 50% for NM3 and NM4. The list of soil analysis laboratories, contract operators, and remote sensing companies accredited to use SiNM is available here. On the same page, you can find complete information about Zarc Management Levels. In this testing phase, ZarcNM is being used only in the Rural Insurance Premium Subsidy Program (PSR). For the 2026/2027 crop season, R$ 1 million will be allocated for subsidies in the soybean pilot project and R$ 1 million for corn. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa), the amount may be increased if there is demand. Last season, when ZarcNM was tested for the first time only in Paraná, R$ 8 million was allocated, but only R$ 206,000 was contracted. 

This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.