FSA maps out late for crop reporting

The results of the effects of the 16-day federal government shutdown continue to be felt, with the USDA’s Farm Service Agency Hill County office reporting the production of maps for farmers to use to report their crop acreage has been delayed, but the deadline to report those crops stayed the same.

Les Respins, Hill County executive director for the FSA, said the deadline for farmers to report the acreage of their fall crops is Nov. 15.

FSA provides the maps for farmers to use in reporting their crops, but, Respins said, the federal shutdown significantly delayed production of those maps.

“We are currently working on preparing the 2014 maps, and we anticipate having maps ready for Hill County producers to pick up at the Havre USDA Service Center on Monday, Oct. 28,” Respins said.

Once they have the maps, producers will need to fill in their fall seeded and perennial crops and return the maps to the USDA office in time to sign crop reports by close of business on Nov. 15, he said.

USDA also announced that it has started distributing payments in Conservation Reserve Program to county offices and will start sending Direct and Countercyclical Program and the Average Crop Revenue Election payments Oct. 24.

The payments, originally planned to be sent out earlier this month, also were delayed by the government shutdown.

“Farmers, ranchers and rural landowners across the country count on USDA programs and the payment delays due to the shutdown were an unnecessary burden,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in a press release. “USDA has prioritized making these scheduled payments without any further delay and Farm Service Agency staff have worked hard to get this assistance out the door as quickly as possible.”

Respins said the Hill County office staff is working on reviewing and releasing the individual payments to program participants.

“Once we complete our review, it takes about three to five days for the payments to be electronically deposited in farmer’s accounts,” Respins said. “We anticipate completing our work on these payments by next Monday or Tuesday and expect that producer’s will have the money before the end of the month.”

Respins said FSA also would like to remind people who took advantage of the CRP managed haying provisions that their CRP payment will not be issued until they have reported their bales counts to FSA and certified that the bales have been removed from the land in CRP. Failure to remove the bales by Nov. 12 is a violation of the CRP contract and could result in penalties.