Representative (presiding) opened a Sept. 19 public hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture and introduced House Project C-686, which seeks to amend Puerto Rico's Agricultural Insurance Law to authorize the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas to establish an extraordinary compensation mechanism for farmers with significant losses not covered by existing policies.

The Department of Agriculture and officials from the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas presented a written position and testimony opposing the bill in its current form. Irvin Rodríguez Torres, subsecretary of agriculture, read the agency's memorial explaining technical and legal concerns and recommending against the measure as drafted.

The department's written and oral testimony argued the bill duplicates existing federal safety-net programs and lacks a clear funding source. The presentation noted that the Corporación de Seguros Agrícolas operates on premium income, does not receive recurring general‑fund appropriations, and participates in federal reinsurance through the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) under a Standard Reinsurance Agreement (SRA). As the testimony put it, the FCIC conditions participation on the insurer's solvency and the maintenance of separate reserves.

Irvin Rodríguez Torres said the federal structure provides alternative compensation for risks not covered by the island's policies, citing the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) and other USDA mechanisms used after major disasters. Department testimony referenced post‑2017 federal programs that provided hundreds of millions in relief and said similar interagency frameworks have covered many uninsured losses.

Agency witnesses warned that an extraordinary compensation mandate without explicit funding could force the Corporación to draw on reserves or state resources, jeopardizing reinsurance. The department cited Article 10 of the Agricultural Insurance Law (as described in the testimony) to note that, if claims exceed the corporation's funds, the Secretary of Finance could be required to provide necessary money from uncommitted Treasury funds. The memorandum estimated a potential state exposure of about $84,000,000 if federal reinsurance were lost.

The department also cited historical episodes in which parallel, ad hoc state compensation created operational and fiscal problems: testimony referenced a roughly $6,000,000 debt the insurer carried after a 2004 response and a roughly $15,000,000 state emergency fund used in 2024. Witnesses said those past efforts illustrated risks of double payments, institutional confusion, and threats to the insurer's technical reserves.

As alternatives, the department recommended strengthening interagency coordination, simplifying claims procedures, improving communication protocols between agencies, expanding farmer education about existing federal and local programs, and targeted legislative support for those improvements rather than creating a new, open‑ended compensation mechanism.

Representative (presiding) acknowledged the department's position and said the committee will summon Secretary Josue9 Rivera and Lic. Ruye1n (director of the Corporacif3n de Seguros Agredcolas), who had been listed as proponents of the bill, to appear in a future public hearing. No formal committee vote on C-686 occurred at the hearing.

Ending: The committee left C-686 under consideration and instructed staff to schedule attendance by the named officials at a later session; the Department of Agriculture requested legislative changes to reinforce existing interagency processes rather than authorizing an unsourced extraordinary compensation fund.