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Should I Give my
Tenant Power of Attorney for 2014 Farm Bill Decisions?
By Sam Custer
OSU Extension, Darke County
There are three decisions that need to be made in regards to the 2014
Farm Bill. Some of the decisions have been designated as the
landowner’s responsibility and others have been designated the
farmer’s/tenant’s responsibility. This division of decision
responsibilities adds another level of confusion and leads to the
question on the validity of previously signed power of attorney
documents on file with FSA.
Specifically the yield update and the base acre reallocation decisions
are the landowner’s decision to make. When the landowner is not the
farmer, there may be a disconnect between the person charged with
making the decision and the person who has the information needed to
make the decision. Landowners have several choices at this point.
First, they can choose not to update their farm yields and/or
reallocate their farm’s base acres. It is estimated that updating yield
will increase the program yield for approximately 80 to 85 percent of
the farms in Ohio. While the updated yields are only important for the
Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program election, there is speculation the
higher yield might be useful in future farm bill legislation. Base acre
reallocation is less straight forward but some people who have studied
the potential program payments believe that corn, wheat, and then beans
are the value order of the base acres.
Secondly, landowners can work with their farmers to retrieve the
necessary information in order to make these decisions. This could
require a significant amount of time and multiple visits to make sure
the information is accurate. Even though the documentation is not
necessary at the time of updating yields and base acres, if spot
checked, the person verifying the information would need to produce
sound evidence of the updated yields and planted acres for the
appropriate time periods.
Finally landowners might consider signing a power of attorney to allow
their tenant to handle all the 2014 Farm Bill program decisions.
Allowing the tenant farmer to make the decision may provide for the
most accurate and defensible information. The program choice
decision, ARC–IC, ARC–CO, or PLC, are by legislation already designated
to the person who has risk in growing the crops. In a cash rent
situation, this person is the tenant.
Questions have been asked at meetings about the validity of an existing
Power of Attorney, signed by the landowner which is on file with Farm
Service Agency. FSA personnel have indicated the current FSA-211,
Power of Attorney, is valid for the ARC/PLC program if Section A and B
are marked as follows: Section A, item 2, “All current and ALL future
programs” and Section B, item 1, “All Actions.” Tenants should
check with their local FSA office to make sure the FSA-211 is current
before making decisions. Regardless if the power of attorney is current
or not, this would be a good opportunity to have a discussion between
the land owner and the tenant on what would be the proper way of
handling the farm bill decision for the farm.
Three educational meetings will be held on December 3rd at 9, 1 and 7
at the Greenville VFW on Ohio Street to provide more information in
assisting landowners and producers to make decisions.
For more information about OSU Extension, Darke County, visit the Darke
County OSU Extension web site at www.darke.osu.edu, the OSU Extension
Darke County Facebook page or contact Sam Custer, at 937.548.5215.
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