USDA plans meetings on Farm Bill

With federal farm programs rewritten in a long-delayed Farm Bill, Montana ag producers can hear about how to pick the best programs for their operations in a series of meetings set throughout the state in the next two months.

The USDA Farm Service Agency, USDA Risk Management Agency and Montana State University Extension Service have announced the dates and times of 28 meetings starting in Belgrade Oct. 15. The meetings primarily will cover the new Price Loss Coverage, or PLC, and Agricultural Risk Coverage, or ARC, programs which replace most previous crop support programs and are administered by the FSA, the new Supplemental Coverage Option administered by the Risk Management Agency on farms not covered by the Price Loss Coverage option, and will talk about about an online tool offered by Extension Service to help farmers decide which option or combination of options, if available, is best for their farm.

FSA State Executive Director Bruce Nelson also recently reminded farmers that a new closing date is fast approaching on the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, commonly called NAP, for fall seeded crops and perennial forage and grazing crops. The new deadline for the fall crops is Sept. 30. The program provides financial assistance to eligible producers impacted by natural disasters on crops for which federal crop insurance is not available.

Revamping support programs after a two-year delay

The Farm Bill, which provides programs for farming and ranching operations as well as nutrition programs such as school lunch assistance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly Food Stamps, was stuck in the congressional mud in Washington for two years.

The previous Farm Bill expired in October 2012. In June 2012, the U.S. Senate passed a farm bill to take effect at the start of the funding year in October, but the House of Representatives never took that up, and never brought to the floor its own version, which stalled after coming out of the House agriculture committee.

The Senate again passed a Farm Bill in June 2013, and it again stalled in the House.

On a party-line vote with no Democrats and not all Republicans in favor, the House in July 2013 passed its own version in July, which included splitting the nutrition programs out to be considered in a separate bill.

The Senate then amended the House bill, replacing it with its own, passed the amended House version and sent it back — starting months of negotiations to resolve the differences including the House again combining the nutrition programs with the ag programs. The revised version passed earlier this year and was signed into law by President Barack Obama Feb. 7

The bill eliminates, consolidates or replaces many programs in previous farm bills, and also cuts the 10-year budget for SNAP by $8.6 billion.

Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill, over the next 10 years, would spend $956 billion with $756 billion of that in nutrition programs. That budget would reduce the nation’s deficits by $16.6 billion from 2014 to 2023, CBO estimates.

The bill also eliminates the direct payment program and the countercyclical programs established in the 2002 Farm Bill as well as the Average Crop Revenue Election created in the 2008 Farm Bill, replacing them with the PLC and ARC programs. It sets a limit of $900,000 adjusted gross income for eligibility.

Complex decision making

The meetings — and online MSU Extension tool — will help producers negotiate the process to decide what is best to lock their production into.

Producers will have to make several decisions, including whether to keep previous allocation and yield information or update that with more recent information.

The other decision is which program, or combination of programs, in which to enroll. The choice will last for the five-year life of the Farm Bill. Each “farm” — the farm number of a tract of land, with producers possibly having more than one farm — must be enrolled in one of the options, but different farm number tracts can have different options.

In the ARC program, the payment is based on actual revenue, the price of a commodity and how many bushels per acre are produced, drops below a guaranteed level. The farmers also must decide on whether to use countywide figures or figures for their farm.

The PLC program is based on price alone. If the price of a commodity drops below a guaranteed payment, the farmer receives a payment based on how low the price drops.

If a farmer enrolls the operation in countywide ARC, it can be in combination with PLC on some crops. If the farmer uses the farm-based ARC option, PLC cannot be used.

The meetings — and the online tool — will help farmers make the decision on what program or combination would be best for their operation.

Risk Management Agency representatives also will provide an overview and answer questions about the Supplemental Coverage Option, a county-level revenue or yield-based optional endorsement that covers a portion of losses not covered by the deductible of the same crop’s underlying policy.

Sets 28 meetings in 29 days

The meetings announced by Nelson, Risk Management Agency Regional Director Eric Bahore and MSU Extension Director Jeff Bader crisscross the state in less than a month.

In north-central Montana, the schedule includes meetings in Browning from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Oct. 28, with a meeting at the Shelby Coyote Club Eagles Lodge from 2 to 6 p.m. that day. A meeting is set in Fort Benton at the AG Center from 8 a.m. to noon Thursday, Oct. 30, with another meeting in Havre that day in the Montana State University-Northern Student Union Ballroom from 2 to 6 p.m.

Another meeting is set in Malta from 8 a.m. to noon Friday, Oct. 31, and meetings are set Thursday, Nov. 6, from 9 a.m. to noon in the Jon Morsette Vocational Technical Center on the campus of Stone Child College at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation. That is followed that day with a meeting in Room 209 of the Returning Buffalo Building at Aaniiih Nakoda College at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation from 2 to 6 p.m.

A full list of the meetings is available online at: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/printapp?fileName=stnr_mt_20140910_rel_283.html&newsType=stnewsrel.