the bistro off broadway
text

Farm Program Payments Revisited
By Chris Bruynis, OSU Extension Educator, Ross County
Farmers May Choose Between County of Administration or Geographic County Location…. From Sam Custer, OSU Extension Educator, Darke County

Farmers with the administration of their farms consolidated at one FSA office may want to examine their 2014 and 2015 ARC-CO payment calculations. Original 2014 ARC-CO payments were calculated on the average yields for the administrative FSA office county, regardless of where the land was physically located. Recently FSA announced that farmers could elect to have the 2014 and/or the 2015 ARC-CO payments calculated on the county in which the land is physically located. For some farms this would be financially beneficial and needs to be requested by April 15, 2016. FSA has calculated the results for the 2014 payments and for the farms where this election is beneficial, farmers simply need to sign the forms at their local FSA office. This will only affect farmers with land in more than one county.

I have created some visual maps for farmers to reference for the 2014 payments received in October of 2015. These maps give a quick visual for ARC-CO corn, soybean, and wheat payments by county with payments rounded to the nearest dollar. Farmers can quickly look to see if the land in a neighboring county, that is not their administrative county, had a significantly different payment. Based on this information, they can decide if they want to elect to be paid based on the farm land’s county. For 2014 this decision is very easy since payment rates are known (check with your local FSA office to determine exact payment changes). Here is an example.

Example 1: Fisher Farms have land in Ross and Pike Counties. Their original 2014 ARC-CO payment which was received in October 2015 was based on Ross County payment rates. They can now elect to have the land in Pike County be based on Pike County payment rates. Examining the maps below, he would give up $2 per acre on the corn base but gain $32 per acre on the soybean base. There was no payment in either county for wheat base acres. Depending on the number of base acres of corn and soybeans, this could be a beneficial decision to make.

The prices listed on the maps for both 2014 and 2015 are estimated for the actual payment rate per acre. However, if farmers want to estimate ARC-CO payments for their farm, they would need to make two adjustments. First the program pays on 85% of the base acres, one would need to multiply the amount by 85% to adjust for this reduction. Secondly there would need to be an adjustment for sequestration created by congress. In 2014 it sequestration equaled a 6.8% reduction and is anticipated to be a 7.3 percent reduction for 2015. Example: Farm payment, based on the maps, would be $1000. Eighty-five percent of this would be $850. Subtracting the sequestration amount of 6.8% would leave an estimated payment of $792. I would exercise caution in using the calculated amount as a guarantee income for 2016, but it would provide a close estimation if all the assumptions hold true in this example.

Download the pdf with maps here



 
senior scribes
senior scribes

County News Online

is a Fundraiser for the Senior Scribes Scholarship Committee. All net profits go into a fund for Darke County Senior Scholarships
contact
Copyright © 2011 and design by cigs.kometweb.com