California's 2026 harvest insurance price for conventional grain corn is $4.75 per bushel, up from the $4.56 projected price, according to USDA's Risk Management Agency. That increase raises the guarantee under Revenue Protection, but growers still need qualifying yield losses to trigger payments. Corn insured as silage follows a different pricing rule.
The conventional increase is 19 cents per bushel, or about 4.2%, calculated from RMA's California price tables. For organic non-high-amylose corn, the agency lists a $7.51 harvest price against a $7.21 projected price. Those organic figures are separate from the conventional prices used in the coverage comparison below.
California's projected price comes from the January 15 through February 14 discovery period; its harvest price comes from October 1 through October 31. RMA's corn provisions specify the December corn futures contract for both California periods. These are insurance pricing windows, not dates when a grower necessarily sold or harvested the crop.
How the three coverage plans differ
Revenue Protection, commonly called RP, uses the higher of the projected or harvest price to set its guarantee. With California's harvest price above its projected price, the higher figure applies. University researchers Nick Paulson, Gary Schnitkey, Henrique Monaco and Carl Zulauf explain that this feature distinguishes RP from coverage that excludes the harvest-price increase.
Revenue Protection with the Harvest Price Exclusion, or RP-HPE, does not raise its guarantee when the harvest price rises. The researchers explain that, at the same coverage level, RP-HPE consequently requires a larger yield loss before payments begin than RP does. A higher harvest price therefore does not affect the two revenue plans in the same way.
Yield Protection, or YP, works differently again. In this higher-harvest-price situation, the researchers say YP and RP trigger payments at the same level of yield loss. However, YP values covered yield losses at the lower projected price. RP payments are larger for the same covered loss because they use the higher harvest price.
For California conventional grain corn, that valuation difference is $4.56 under YP versus $4.75 under RP. The 19-cent spread is not itself a payment per acre. Whether a payment occurs, and its size, still depends on the applicable yield guarantee, coverage level and yield loss. The price increase alone does not trigger an indemnity.
Use California's projected price
The university analysis uses a $4.62 projected corn price for its Midwest comparison, not California's $4.56. Its explanation of the plans helps clarify the effect of a rising harvest price, but California growers need the California price pair when considering that effect. The distinction changes the size of the projected-to-harvest increase.
Silage follows a separate pricing rule
Silage should not be folded into that grain-price comparison. RMA's corn provisions state that corn for silage is not traded on a commodity exchange. The agency determines its projected price, and its harvest insurance price equals that projected price. Silage therefore does not receive the grain policy's price increase as exchange prices move.
That rule does not mean silage is automatically excluded from revenue coverage. RMA's provisions allow revenue protection where silage is an insurable type. They also describe the possibility of insuring grain and silage under revenue protection and potentially qualifying for a whole-farm unit. Availability remains tied to the applicable county and policy provisions.
The silage distinction comes from RMA's corn price provisions released in June 2023 for the 2024 and succeeding crop years. It is existing policy context, not a newly announced 2026 change. Under those provisions, the agency determines and releases the silage projected price by January 31 of the harvest year.
Certified organic grain corn has another defined pricing step: RMA multiplies the grain projected and harvest prices by an agency-determined factor and rounds each to the nearest cent. The same factor applies to both. California's published organic increase is 30 cents per bushel, but that organic grain comparison does not override the separate rule setting silage's harvest price equal to its projected price.
