Farmers have an additional month, until March 31, to tell the USDA if they want to update their yield and acreage “bases” for crop subsidies. Operators also face a March 31 deadline to select a crop subsidy program – either the shallow-loss Agriculture Risk Coverage or the traditionally structured Price Loss Coverage – for the life of the 2014 farm law. The department announced “a one-time extension” on Friday, the previous yield-and-base deadline; the decision period opened on Sept. 29, 2014. Some 202,000 farmers have asked for updates, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week.
“We’ll be as flexible as we can,” Vilsack told senators who asked if the USDA could handle a last-minute crush of business. Vilsack said he gets a daily report on sign-up progress. Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas applauded the one-month extension and said, “USDA heard the concerns directly from producers earlier this week at our first committee hearing, and took action as a result.” Also last week, the USDA extended to March 13 the deadline for applications to the Conservation Stewardship Program, a green-payments program for working lands.
The March 31 deadline for farmers to make crop-program choices coincides with two major USDA reports, the annual Prospective Plantings report and the quarterly Grain Stocks report. There have been suggestions of a later ARC/PLC deadline because the March 31 reports may cause farmers to switch their selections. The plantings report provides the first famer-based estimates of crop area this year–a key element in commodity prices.
“A program choice of ARC or PLC coverage also must be made by March 31, 2015, or there will be no 2014 payments for the farm and the farm will default to PLC coverage through the 2018 crop year,” read a USDA statement. ARC and PLC are offered on grain and oilseed crops. With the creation of STAX, upland cotton is covered by a revenue insurance program with a minimum price guarantee.