USDA has opened enrollment for Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) for the 2024 crop year, but that doesn't mean farmers should force themselves into making a quick call on ARC and PLC.
Decisions for the 2024 crop year are going to look a little different for ARC and PLC than in the past because the escalator for the effective reference price finally kicks in.
The signup is starting later than normal because the 2018 farm bill was in limbo until Congress extended programs to Sept. 30, 2024, then USDA had to get its ducks in a row.
Farm Service Administrator (FSA) Zach Ducheneaux stated in a news release that farmers should "avoid the rush" and contact their local FSA offices for an appointment to enroll. Even if you do not change your program selections, you still need to sign a contract.
NOT SO FAST, MY FRIENDS
Farmers might want to hold back from rushing out to the FSA office for just a bit. The enrollment deadline for ARC-PLC is March 15, 2024. That's also the same day farmers in a large swath of the country must lock in their crop insurance plans for the year as well.
The odd thing about USDA's news release telling everyone that enrollment is open is that no mention was made about changes in the ARC benchmark prices or PLC effective reference prices for the 2024 enrollment. USDA's enrollment notice to state and county offices also does not mention any adjustments to ARC or PLC reference prices.
A fact sheet on the USDA ARC-PLC website notes changes to the reference prices, but they are not published. "Under the 2018 Farm Bill amendments, effective reference prices will be calculated to allow upward fluctuation of reference prices in time periods when historic price averages are higher than the established reference price for the covered commodity."
Clear as mud, right?
EFFECTIVE REFERENCE PRICE CHANGES
The 2018 farm bill tweaked ARC-PLC with an effective reference price meant to adjust upward with certain market conditions. Basically, reference prices could move upward if market-year prices were higher for the most recent five crop years based on the ARC-County formula tied to an 85% Olympic average -- three of the five previous years of market prices are averaged with the highs and the lows kicked out, then multiplied by 85%. One more caveat caps any price swing at 115% of the statutory reference price.
Under that scenario, the effective reference price looks like this:
- Corn is projected to move upward from $3.70 a bushel to $4.01 a bushel.
- Soybeans would move from $8.40 a bushel to $9.26 a bushel.
- Wheat would remain with the 2018 reference price of $5.50 a bushel. Wheat prices are held back by a three-year stretch from 2018-2020 when the market-year average prices all came in at $5.16 a bushel or lower.
Those are just the prices for three of the 22 commodities eligible for ARC-PLC, but they could change the dynamics of a producer's enrollment in those programs and crop insurance.
SEE WHAT AG ECON GUYS HAVE TO SAY
ARC-County also relies on county yields by comparing the benchmark revenue to county yields on base acres and the market-year average price.
Given that we're deep into the holiday season right now, farmers should at least wait until they see some analysis on ARC-PLC decisions from the agricultural economic folks at their respective land-grant university agricultural economic number-crunchers at places such as the University of Illinois, K-State, Iowa State, Texas A&M, etc.
Source: iowacorn.org
Photo Credit: gettyimages-d-keine
Categories: Iowa, General