Ag Policy
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Updated Information on Crop Insurance Budget Proposals
Yesterday, we had posted on proposed reductions in the crop insurance premium subsidy that the farmer normally pays based upon our review of the actual budget released by the White House. Today, I received more information on the actual proposed changes. First, President Obama calls for reducing the premium subsidy by 10% for revenue coverage […]
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President Has Crop Insurance in His Crosshairs
The President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget just came out and one of the areas that he has identified for savings is reduction in the subsidies for crop insurance. Quoting the budget directly: “Overly generous benefits have almost eliminated the risk in farming at a cost to taxpayers in the billions. The Budget includes reforms that […]
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How Will Crop Insurance Guarantees Look This Spring
Today begins the first official discovery day of the corn and soybean (and other crops) spring projected prices for 2015 crops. As I write this post, corn is enjoying a rally of about 7 cents and beans are up about the same. Not sure where they will close today, but I thought I would take […]
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ARC for Low Yields – PLC for High Yields
Many farmers will not elect 100% ARC or PLC. Even if ARC-CO will make a large 2014-crop corn payments, most will try elect some PLC on acres just in case substantially lower prices might occur in 2015-2018. In those cases, the firm rule of thumb is to elect PLC on your highest yielding farms first, elect […]
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Additional CBO Analysis
Yesterday, we posted on the new baseline study just released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Today, I will add some additional analysis gleaned from the report: The CBO is projecting that many growers will sign up for ARC-IC and payments will range from about $350 to 707 million during the five-year life of the […]
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How Accurate is CBO on PLC and ARC
The Congressional Budget Office just released their updated baseline report for all farm programs. This baseline is an update from last April’s baseline and although their estimate of farm PLC and ARC payments may be fairly accurate over the 10 years of their projections, I highly doubt the accuracy of their projections for the 2014 […]
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Possible Maximum ARC-CO and PLC 2014 Payments
The University of Illinois in their FarmDoc Daily report released estimated ARC and PLC payments by state last week. For corn, the payments ranged from a low of zero for ARC-CO in multiple states (those with higher than average yields in 2014). Some of the key corn-growing states with estimated ARC-CO payments of zero were Kansas and Missouri. Each […]
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More Than Half of Dairy Producer’s Enroll in Margin Program
The USDA just announced that more than 23,000 dairy producers enrolled in the new Dairy Margin Protection Program for 2015. As an example, in the state of Wisconsin more than 55% of the producers signed up and 55% of those that signed up did so at some level of buy-up coverage. The $4 level was […]
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USDA Announces More Than $18 Million to Support Training and Development for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers
The USDA announced on January 12, 2015 the availability of more than $18 million in funding to help educate, mentor and enhance the sustainability of the next generation of farmers. This support is available through the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP), administered by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The BFRDP […]
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Is California Egg Law the Wave of the Future for Farming?
A recent Business Week article highlighted the current California law regarding the amount of area that chickens are required to have in order for producers to sell eggs into California. The law was passed a couple of years back requiring at least 116 squares inches of space for each laying hen which was almost a […]