{"id":73786,"date":"2016-10-05T04:44:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T08:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=73786"},"modified":"2016-10-04T21:49:23","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T01:49:23","slug":"usda-issues-safety-net-payments-to-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=73786","title":{"rendered":"USDA Issues Safety-Net Payments to Farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"USDA_Logo\"<\/a>The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that\u00a0beginning today, many of the 1.7 million farms that enrolled in either the Agriculture Risk Coverage\u00a0or Price Loss Coverage programs will receive safety-net payments due to market\u00a0downturns during the 2015 crop year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fall, USDA will be making more than $7 billion in payments under the ARC-County and PLC\u00a0programs to assist participating producers, which will account for over 10 percent of USDA\u2019s projected\u00a02016 net farm income. These payments will help provide reassurance to America\u2019s farm families, who\u00a0are standing strong against low commodity prices compounded by unfavorable growing conditions in\u00a0many parts of the country,\u201d said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.<\/p>\n

“At USDA, we are standing strong\u00a0behind them, tapping in to every resource that we have to help. So far in 2016, this has included creating\u00a0a one-time cost share program for cotton ginning, purchasing about $800 million in excess commodities\u00a0to be redirected to food banks and those in need, making $11 million in payments to America\u2019s dairy\u00a0farmers through the Dairy Margin Protection Program, and reprogramming Farm Service Agency funds\u00a0to expand credit options for farmers and ranchers in need of extra capital.<\/p>\n

“As always, we continue to\u00a0watch market conditions and will explore opportunities for further assistance in the coming months. For\u00a0producers challenged by weather, disease and falling prices, we will continue to ensure the availability\u00a0of a strong safety net to keep them farming or ranching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the old direct payment program, which issued payments during both weak and strong market\u00a0conditions, the 2014 Farm Bill authorized the ARC-PLC safety net to trigger and provide financial\u00a0assistance only when decreases in revenues or crop prices, respectively, occur.\u00a0 The ARC and PLC\u00a0programs primarily allow producers to continue to produce for the market by making payments on a\u00a0percentage of historical base production, limiting the impact on production decisions.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, producers enrolled 96 percent of soybean base acres, 91 percent of corn base acres and 66\u00a0percent of wheat base acres in the ARC-County coverage option. Producers enrolled 99 percent of long\u00a0grain rice and peanut base acres and 94 percent of medium grain rice base acres in the PLC option.<\/p>\n

Overall, 76 percent of participating farm base acres are enrolled in ARC-County, 23 percent in PLC and\u00a0one percent in ARC-Individual. For other program information including frequently asked questions,\u00a0visit www.fsa.usda.gov\/arc-plc.<\/p>\n

Payments are made to producers who enrolled base acres of barley, corn, grain sorghum, lentils, oats,\u00a0peanuts, dry peas, soybeans, wheat and canola. In the upcoming months, payments will be announced\u00a0after marketing year average prices are published by USDA\u2019s National Agricultural Statistics Service\u00a0for the remaining covered commodities. These include long and medium grain rice (except for temperate\u00a0Japonica rice), which will be announced in November, remaining oilseeds and chickpeas, which will be\u00a0announced in December, and temperate Japonica rice, which will be announced in early February 2017.<\/p>\n

Upland cotton is no longer a covered commodity.<\/p>\n

The Budget Control Act of 2011, passed by Congress, requires USDA to reduce 2015 ARC and PLC\u00a0payments by 6.8 percent. For more information, producers are encouraged to visit their local Farm\u00a0Service Agency (FSA) office. To find a local FSA office, visit http:\/\/offices.usda.gov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that\u00a0beginning today, many of the 1.7 million farms that enrolled in either the Agriculture Risk Coverage\u00a0or Price Loss Coverage programs will receive safety-net payments due to market\u00a0downturns during the 2015 crop year. \u201cThis fall, USDA will be making more than $7 billion in payments under the ARC-County and PLC\u00a0programs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73786","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\/73786","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=73786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}