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ARC County still best risk management option for most farmers

An ag economist says his risk management recommendations have not changed.

Paul Mitchell with the University of Wisconsin Madison tells Brownfield he still prefers the County Ag Risk Coverage plan because of where market prices are. “The 2024 marketing year average price is still $4.40, above the $4.01 price floor for corn and $11.20 for beans, well above the $9.26 price floor for soybeans in TLC. They’re closer, but ARC is still the better deal.”

Mitchell says last summer, there were record or near record yields even though it was a drought year, but the county ARC program is more likely to pay farmers with locally-heavy losses. “Some counties are low, I mean, the yield is, and so the national level prices and national level yields aren’t necessarily correlated with what happens on your local county. That’s another reason I think that if you’re in a county that gets hit by the drought, you’re going to have a low county yield triggering ARC payments, but the national yields might be fine.”

Mitchell says farmers can reach online tools and recommendations at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Illinois websites.