STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Duane A. Lienemann
UNL Extension Educator

                          
     It is Valentine’s Day as I send out this week’s edition. I would bet a lot of men are out trying to find that last minute card, flower, candy or whatever they hope will suffice to show their Valentine that they are thinking of them. While it seems natural for men to wait for that “adrenalin” rush or whatever invigorates them to rush to get the deed done, I think it is just normal for people to procrastinate. I know that I could be charter member of the procrastinator’s club, but they keep postponing the meeting. One thing that I hope our farmers don’t do is to procrastinate in dealing with the farm bill.
     If you rent your land from a retired farmer; or perhaps someone who lives in another state or somewhere not even close to the farm; or even more challenging, an individual who inherited a farm; you probably know the challenges that explaining ARC-CO, ARC-IND, or PLC brings. To top it off you need to explain that there are no Direct Payments this year; they have to decide which way they want to go with the election process; and before they do, they must decide if they want to update their yield and/or their base acres. Does that scenario sound familiar? What is worse it is in February, they are enjoying the southern sun and don’t want to worry about these things and February 27th is just around the corner.
    You might ask –“What has February 27 got to do with it?”  Most farmers are certainly aware that that date is the drop dead last day that a farm’s yields can be updated and/or base acres reallocate--or left alone. Do you rent your farmland? How responsive has your landlord been about meeting the Feb. 27 deadline? If you rent out your land, have you heard from your tenant about this paperwork? This is not the time to procrastinate. Make sure you dot all your i’s and cross your t’s!.
     Now let’s say that your research into the new farm bill commodity programs has convinced you that ARC-CO is the best deal for your operations-- and only PLC seems to require updating. So, do you really need to worry about nagging your landlord to update the yields and base acres on the property by Feb. 27 if you are not taking PLC?  Well, yes, say the experts. So you should make sure they decide!! Only landowners can complete the paperwork required to update yields and reallocate base acres on each FSA farm, so producers/renters want to make sure that their landlords get this done—or risk financial consequences for years to come. There is one simple reason that must be considered.  If you don’t update, you’ll be stuck with old yields! Why is that important? It is no secret that some of these yield records are decades old. 
     Every expert I talk to says you absolutely want to update yields, even if you don’t want to do PLC, because you never know what will happen with the next farm bill, so best update yields. Now the question is – “How can producers who rent their land make this happen?” After all, it's a common situation. A 2013 producer’s poll found that just 10% of producers owned all the land that they farmed. Slightly more than 40% said they rented more than 60% of their acreage. So there is a lot explaining that is going on and a lot of hoping that landlords are making these decisions. !! As for the allocation of acres, the general consensus is that farmers, or their landlords, should allocate as many acres to corn as possible to maximize the payouts under the new commodity programs. The prevailing wind out their whistles the tune “Corn is King”! That being said however, there is something to be said about keeping good grain sorghum and wheat base in dryland situations.
     The easy solution in dealing with these decisions, ironically, starts with even more paperwork. If you have a power of attorney from your landlord, you can complete the paperwork for each FSA farm and submit it on your landlord’s behalf. If you don’t have a power of attorney covering land decisions like this, you may want to ask your landlord or financial adviser about getting one. Power of attorney or not, you’ll still want to gather a few documents of your own, starting with the August 2014 FSA letter with the FSA’s office’s recorded yields and base acres for the land. Add to that your grain elevator statements and crop insurance records. Once you have that data, you can download an interactive tool from several sources like Illinois, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State/Iowa State or even a simple tool that is available from the FSA website itself. These tools are designed to will walk you through the options for updating yields and base acres. From that you will need to generate the FSA form (CCC-859) that needs to be signed and submitted to the FSA by Friday, Feb. 27. 
     Many people think that they must make all of their election decisions (PLC or ARC) when they go in to sign up for yield and base. While that would be nice getting this out of your hair, you do have more time in which to make your final decision on whether to select ARC (County or Individual), which is a revenue-based program, or opt for the price based PLC. You also have time to make your insurance decisions.  But don’t procrastinate on the election of program either as the due date for those decisions are not far behind at March 31, 2015. You do not want to end up with the government default!
     Last but certainly not least, I made note of something that brought back some very bad memories. If you didn’t catch it, The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed this past Friday that a beef cow in Alberta tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. The good news is that officials say no part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems. Unlike the “Cow that Stole Christmas” on December 23, 2003, which caused the industry billions of dollars in lost exports of beef cuts and variety meats; tens of millions of dollars of new operating costs and capital expenditures for beef processors that continue to this day; not to mention costs of identification and the ongoing ramifications of COOL and trade barriers, this seems like no news this time!! Thank God!! We don’t need any more bad news in the livestock industry. It’s bad enough dealing with the Farm Bill!!

The preceding information comes from the research and personal observations of the writer which may or may not reflect the views of UNL or UNL Extension. For more further information on these or other topics contact D. A. Lienemann, UNL Extension Educator for Webster County in Red Cloud, (402) 746-3417 or email to: dlienemann2@unl.edu or go to the website at: http://www.webster.unl.edu/home