(Farm and Ranch Guide) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture was left with the huge task of implementing the new Farm Bill, once it became the law of the land. But, over the course of the next few months, producers must make some major decisions on how the farm legislation impacts their individual operations – and these choices are likely to have long-lasting results. That’s the message from North Dakota State University Extension farm management specialist Dwight Aakre.
What this means is farmers and ranchers will need to study the various options that are available to them and then do some pencil pushing to determine what fits best in their plans for the future. And the stakes are high, since Aakre feels there will be a definite advantage for those enrolling in the farm program that runs through 2018.
All of the commodity programs that farmers and ranchers have become familiar with have now disappeared and have been replaced with new. And new programs naturally mean an entirely new list of acronyms – PLC (Price Loss Coverage), ARC (Agricultural Risk Coverage) and SCO (Supplemental Coverage Option), are just a few that producers will need to become familiar with.
But along with these new programs comes the opportunity to reallocate your farm’s base acres, and since payments under the 2014 Farm Bill are calculated on base acres, it’s important to research how a reallocation of base acres could potentially impact your operation. And once that decision on base acres, along with several other options, is made later this year, that decision is locked in place for at least the remaining duration of the farm bill.
And to make no decision this year could be even worse, since the farm would be locked into the default provisions of the program.
If you think there are some weighty decisions that lie ahead, you’re right. But, the good part is there will be several informational sources at your disposal, that will help make the decision process easier. University Extension Services, major ag lenders, crop insurance agencies, plus many others will soon have information, spreadsheets and advice in place to help sort out the various options available and which may work better in certain situations.
And, you will have a reasonable amount of time to explore those options before a final decision is required. No official time line has yet been set forth by USDA, but Aakre expects it will be late summer or early fall before farmers will be asked to register their option choices at their local FSA offices.
Early indications would suggest that selecting the right options could have a big pay back in terms of farm program payments. In a recent education seminar conducted by Aakre, he suggested farmers will definitely want to take part in this farm program, since he expects some pretty good payments coming out of this farm bill. But the question is, how do you maximize those payments?
The answer is do your homework. Decision time will eventually arrive and the best results will come out of combining the best information you have gathered with the research results you have gained by going through the various scenarios.
Years ago in school, the best test results became a reality from doing your homework – and that same axiom holds true today with the final exam on farm program options.
