FSA Issues Another Update on Base Acres Reallocation
The FSA issued a release Notice ARCPLC-7 (issued on Wednesday July 30, 2014) on additional information regarding reallocation of base acres. As previously discussed many times in this blog, each “farm” will have an option to update their base acres to reflect the average acres in production during the 2009 to 2012 crop years. This notice provides a couple of examples of how base acre reallocation may happen.
The notice also has a sample letter of the data that will be mailed out (the estimated mailing time appears to be about the first week in August). The producer then has 60 calendar days from the date of the letter to notify the local FSA office of any changes that needs to be made to the data. This is the initial process in updating the farm’s base acres.
There is a provision that if the farm has approved double crop acres, both crops will be allowed in the base acre reallocation. If the farm produced double crops in a crop year that was not “approved”, the farm appears to be allowed to pick and choose which of those crops it would like to use for that crop year. For example, assume a farm planted 100 acres of corn and then due to weather conditions, etc. replaced the planting with 100 soybean acres. This was not a qualified double crop, therefore, the farm will choose between corn or beans for that year.
There is good data in the notice on how the base acres will be reallocated and it is worth taking a quick look at the notice.
Paul Neiffer, CPA
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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