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Farm Program
Payments Revisited
By Chris Bruynis, OSU Extension Educator, Ross County
Farmers May Choose Between County of Administration or Geographic
County Location…. From Sam Custer, OSU Extension Educator, Darke County
Farmers with the administration of their farms consolidated at one FSA
office may want to examine their 2014 and 2015 ARC-CO payment
calculations. Original 2014 ARC-CO payments were calculated on the
average yields for the administrative FSA office county, regardless of
where the land was physically located. Recently FSA announced that
farmers could elect to have the 2014 and/or the 2015 ARC-CO payments
calculated on the county in which the land is physically located. For
some farms this would be financially beneficial and needs to be
requested by April 15, 2016. FSA has calculated the results for the
2014 payments and for the farms where this election is beneficial,
farmers simply need to sign the forms at their local FSA office. This
will only affect farmers with land in more than one county.
I have created some visual maps for farmers to reference for the 2014
payments received in October of 2015. These maps give a quick visual
for ARC-CO corn, soybean, and wheat payments by county with payments
rounded to the nearest dollar. Farmers can quickly look to see if the
land in a neighboring county, that is not their administrative county,
had a significantly different payment. Based on this information, they
can decide if they want to elect to be paid based on the farm land’s
county. For 2014 this decision is very easy since payment rates are
known (check with your local FSA office to determine exact payment
changes). Here is an example.
Example 1: Fisher Farms have land in Ross and Pike Counties. Their
original 2014 ARC-CO payment which was received in October 2015 was
based on Ross County payment rates. They can now elect to have the land
in Pike County be based on Pike County payment rates. Examining the
maps below, he would give up $2 per acre on the corn base but gain $32
per acre on the soybean base. There was no payment in either county for
wheat base acres. Depending on the number of base acres of corn and
soybeans, this could be a beneficial decision to make.
The prices listed on the maps for both 2014 and 2015 are estimated for
the actual payment rate per acre. However, if farmers want to estimate
ARC-CO payments for their farm, they would need to make two
adjustments. First the program pays on 85% of the base acres, one would
need to multiply the amount by 85% to adjust for this reduction.
Secondly there would need to be an adjustment for sequestration created
by congress. In 2014 it sequestration equaled a 6.8% reduction and is
anticipated to be a 7.3 percent reduction for 2015. Example: Farm
payment, based on the maps, would be $1000. Eighty-five percent of this
would be $850. Subtracting the sequestration amount of 6.8% would leave
an estimated payment of $792. I would exercise caution in using the
calculated amount as a guarantee income for 2016, but it would provide
a close estimation if all the assumptions hold true in this example.
Download the pdf with maps here
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