10% of Benchmark Revenue not Benchmark Guarantee

A problem with trying to read a 900 page plus farm bill on a small laptop screen is that it is very easy to misread some of the fine print.  A reader gave us a comment regarding ARC that the maximum payout is 10% of benchmark revenue, not benchmark guarantee.  In this case, the actual amount allowed would be about 10% higher than my examples.

Also, the yield for each county is based upon yield by planted acres.  It appears that the USDA does not directly report this number, but it can be arrived at taking total county production and then dividing it by total planted acres for each county.  In my example, I simply used the numbers provided by the USDA for yield by county which is provided by the USDA.  This would result in the numbers shown in the example changing by a small amount.

We will keep you updated on the farm bill and if you find anything that does not look right, please send us a comment asap.

Paul Neiffer, CPA