Agricultural producers can now change election and enroll in the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage<\/a> programs for the 2023 crop year, two key safety net programs offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Signup began Monday, and producers have until March 15, 2023, to enroll in these two programs. Additionally, USDA\u2019s Farm Service Agency has started issuing payments totaling more than $255 million to producers with 2021 crops that have triggered payments through ARC or PLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s that time of year for produces to consider all of their risk management options, including safety-net coverage elections through Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage,\u201d said FSA Administrator Zach Ducheneaux. \u201cWe recognize that market prices have generally been very good, but if the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, frequent catastrophic weather events and the Ukraine war have taught us anything, it\u2019s that we must prepare for the unexpected. It\u2019s through programs like ARC and PLC that FSA can provide producers the economic support and security they need to manage market volatility and disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2023 elections and enrollment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Producers can elect coverage and enroll in ARC-County (ARC-CO) or PLC, which provide crop-by-crop protection, or ARC-Individual (ARC-IC), which protects the entire farm. Although election changes for 2023 are optional, producers must enroll through a signed contract each year. Also, if a producer has a multi-year contract on the farm and makes an election change for 2023, they must sign a new contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If producers do not submit their election by the March 15, 2023 deadline, their election remains the same as their 2022 election for crops on the farm.\u202f Farm owners cannot enroll in either program unless they have a share interest in the farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Covered commodities include barley, canola, large and small chickpeas, corn,\u202fcrambe, flaxseed, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, dry peas, rapeseed, long grain rice, medium and short grain rice, safflower seed, seed cotton, sesame, soybeans, sunflower seed and wheat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Web-based decision tools<\/strong>\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n In partnership with USDA, the University of Illinois and Texas A&M University offer web-based decision tools to assist producers in making informed, educated decisions using crop data specific to their respective farming operations. Tools include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2021 payments and contracts<\/strong>\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n ARC and PLC payments for a given crop year are paid out the following fall to allow actual county yields and the Market Year Average prices to be finalized. This month, FSA processed payments\u202fto producers enrolled in\u202f2021 ARC-CO, ARC-IC and PLC for\u202fcovered commodities that triggered for the crop year.\u202f\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n For ARC-CO,\u202fproducers can view the\u202f2021<\/a> ARC-CO Benchmark Yields and Revenues online database,\u202ffor payment rates applicable to their county and each covered commodity.\u202fFor PLC,\u202fpayments\u202fhave triggered for rapeseed and peanuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For ARC-IC, producers should\u202fcontact their local FSA office for additional information pertaining to 2021 payment information, which relies on\u202fproducer-specific yields for the crop and farm to determine benchmark yields and actual year yields when calculating revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the numbers<\/strong>\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2021, producers signed nearly 1.8 million ARC or PLC contracts, and\u202f251\u202fmillion out of\u202f273\u202fmillion\u202fbase acres\u202fwere enrolled in the programs.\u202f For the 2022 crop year signed contracts surpassed 1.8 million, to be paid in the fall of 2023, if a payment triggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since ARC and PLC were first authorized by the\u202f2014 Farm Bill and reauthorized by the 2018 Farm Bill, these safety-net programs have paid out more than\u202f$34.9 billion\u202fto producers of covered commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crop insurance considerations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n ARC and PLC are part of a broader safety net provided by USDA, which also includes crop insurance and marketing assistance loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Producers are reminded that ARC and PLC elections and enrollments can impact eligibility for some crop insurance products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Producers on farms with a PLC election have the option of purchasing Supplemental Coverage Option through their Approved Insurance Provider; however, producers on farms where ARC is the election are ineligible for SCO on their planted acres for that crop on that farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike SCO, the Enhanced Coverage Option is unaffected by an ARC election.\u202f Producers may add ECO regardless of the farm program election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upland cotton farmers who choose to enroll seed cotton base acres in ARC or PLC are ineligible for the stacked income protection plan (STAX) on their planted cotton acres for that farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More information<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information on ARC and PLC, visit the\u202fARC and PLC webpage<\/a>\u202for contact your local\u202fUSDA Service Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Enroll in Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage Programs Payments issuing to producers of 2021 crops triggering safety-net program payments Agricultural producers can now change election and enroll in the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs for the 2023 crop year, two key safety net programs offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Signup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agfarming","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/109135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n