Less than one month remains before the first 2014 Farm Bill sign-up deadline. Friday, February 27 is the deadline for completing the first phase of the sign-up process at the local FSA (Farm Service Agency) Office. This sign-up includes base acre reallocation and yield updates.
Owners of farms have the chance to:
* Maintain the farm’s 2013 base acres of covered commodities (corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, oats or grain sorghum) through 2018.
* Reallocate the base acres of covered commodities (corn, soybeans, wheat, barley, oats or grain sorghum) based on the planting history of these crops between the 2009 and 2012 crop years.
* Update the counter-cyclical yields on each FSA farm unit based on the actual yields for each farm between 2008 and 2012.
Landowners can use this one-time opportunity to update program payment yields for each covered commodity for which they have base acres using 90% of the farm’s 2008-2012 average yield per planted acre, excluding any year in which the covered commodity was not planted.
Producers with a yield in any of the 2008-2012 years that is less than 75% of the county average yield can substitute that yield in the calculation with a yield equal to 75% of the county average yield.
Program payment yields are used to determine payment amounts for the PLC program; however, all farm owners have the option of updating yields regardless of program participation.
The decision to update yields is made on a covered commodity-by-covered commodity basis.
If the landowner chooses not to update farm yields and/or does not make the necessary updates before the deadline of February 27, the farm’s 2013 counter-cyclical (CC) yields will be carried forward as the payment yields for 2014-2018.
The decision to reallocate base acres and/or update crop yields must be a unanimous decision by all owners on the farm.
It is anticipated that the operator of the farm will come to the FSA Office to review the base data and to supply the yield information from 2008-2012 for the farm units in order to update the yield.
All operators and/or owners are encouraged to contact their Multi-Peril Crop Insurance Agent for crop yield data for 2008 through 2012. The data received from your crop insurance agent may be transferred to for CCC-859 to submit yields to the FSA Office that administers the farm records. Owners are very much welcome to come in and complete the base and yield updates, it are noted to bring along the yield data form CCC-859 from the operators.
The goal of the Cottonwood County and Watonwan County FSA offices is 100% participation.
