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Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

CFAES

Free Farm Bill Briefings Scheduled to Help Producers Understand New Crop Insurance Programs

Aug. 4, 2014

Unsure of how the new crop insurance programs in the Agricultural Act of 2014, otherwise known as the Farm Bill, will impact your farm operation?

Farm Credit Mid-America, the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES), and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency have organized a series of free farm bill briefings to help producers understand new crop insurance programs in the legislation. The series will offer information on pertinent deadlines and policy requirements. 

The events will feature Carl Zulauf, Professor in CFAES’ Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, and Jon Coppess, Clinical Assistant Professor of Law and Policy from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois.

“Growers and producers will find the presentation on new farm bill crop programs beneficial because in addition to providing an overview of the new programs, it will also focus on considerations that farmers will want to make as they decide how to move forward with their farm program decisions,” Zulauf said.

The safety net program in the most recent farm bill requires agricultural producers to choose among three programs: the Agriculture Risk Coverage county level (ARC-CO) program, the Agriculture Risk Coverage individual farm program (ARC-IC), and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program. The ARC programs replace the Average Crop Revenue Enhancement Program (ACRE) while PLC replaces the price counter-cyclical program. The USDA has not announced when producers will be able to enroll in the programs as well as some of the rules that will apply to the programs.

“In what currently looks like a low price - low revenue year, payments by these two programs could be important for the financial health of the farm. After a number of years of high revenue and prices, farmers are in the process of rediscovering that the farm safety net involves commodity programs as well as crop insurance,” noted Zulauf.

The locations, dates and times for the meetings are:

  • Aug. 18 at 1 p.m. at the OARDC Fisher Auditorium, 1680 Madison Avenue, in Wooster, Ohio.
  • Aug. 19 at 9 a.m. at the George M. Smart Athletic Center, Defiance College, 701 N. Clinton St., in Defiance, Ohio.
  • Aug. 19 at 9 p.m. at the  Oscar F. Boyd Cultural Arts Center, Wilmington College, College St., in Wilmington, Ohio.
  • Sept. 16 at 2 p.m. at the Farm Science Review, Vice President's Tent, Ohio 38, in London, Ohio.

Registration for the meetings is requested by August 8th and can be completed online at http://go.osu.edu/summer2014farmbill.

These meetings are just a few of the Farm Bill related events that will take place over the next few months that Ohio State faculty and staff will participate in. OSU Extension, the outreach arm of the college, will facilitate a number of meetings around the state. Additionally, new Farm Bill programs will be a topic of discussion at several events at this year’s Farm Science Review, held from September 16-18 at the Molly Caren Agricultural Center near London, Ohio. 

August 4, 2014