News

FSA’s ARC-CO changes welcomed

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) recently modified the way farmers can calculate ARC-County payments for farms in multiple counties.

Brad Lubben, Extension policy specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, says farmers will now be allowed to calculate ARC-County on the physical location of each tract of the farm, instead of the administrative county.

“The producers will get to decide whether to keep their payment based on their administrative country or whether they will get to go back and assign that property to its physical county for purposes of payment,” Lubben says. “That will affect the 2014 payment and that would affect the 2015 payment. By 2016, they’ll have a chance to reconstitute the farm if they choose to—and sort of avoid that issue in the future.”

The National Corn Growers Association commends FSA for making the revision. NCGA says that while the number of farms not located in their administrative county represents a small percentage nationwide, the potential for variation in payments can be very significant.