Another round of Farm Bill meetings set for January 2015

Special to Havre Daily News

Montana USDA Farm Service Agency and Montana State University Extension have announced another series of agricultural producer meetings that will be held across the state in January to cover important new programs authorized by the Agricultural Act of 2014 — the 2014 Farm Bill.

While no meetings are scheduled in Havre, meetings are set throughout the Golden Triangle, and the Hill County FSA office is scheduling some meetings of its own.

The Hill County office is scheduling Farm Bill workshops, with 20 people per workshop, and people can call 265-6792, ext. 2, to preregister. The workshops will be scheduled based on demand — once 20 people have registered, the workshop will be held. Typically two per week will be held through January and into February as necessary.

For the meetings held by state FSA staff, people in this region can attend the meeting Jan. 27 in Fort Benton from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Ag Center, 1205 20th St .; Jan. 28 in Chester from 8 to 10:30 a.m. at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall, 10 East Madison Ave .; and in Chinook Jan. 28 from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at the Blaine County Library, 94 4th St .; or by watching the webinar.

The meetings will involve a more in-depth presentation on the FSA’s Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs, new 2015 program changes to the Livestock Indemnity Program and the Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program Buy-Up option. MSU Extension will present an analysis of Farm Bill programs and an explanation of several Farm Bill Decision Tools available to producers in understanding options under ARC, PLC, and NAP-Buy-Up.

The 2014 Farm Bill authorizes three FSA program election options: PLC, ARC-County or ARC-CO and ARC-Individual or ARC-IC. Producers must make a one-time decision to retain or reallocate crop acreage bases, to retain or update program payment yields and elect the type of coverage — price protection, county revenue protection, and/or individual revenue protection — for the 2014-18 crop years.

For more information, including a printable schedule, visit MSU Extension’s Farm Bill website at http://www.montana.edu/farmbill and Montana FSA’s website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/mt.

People with questions can contact their local FSA office.

For online farm bill resources, people can visit MSU Extension’s Farm Bill website at http://www.montana.edu/farmbill, FSA’s ARC-PLC page at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc, FSA’s national Farm Bill website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/farmbill and Montana FSA’s website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/mt.