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Farm Bill Online and Spreadsheet Tools

Gardner Program Payment Calculator (ARC/PLC)

The Gardner Payment Calculator provides estimates of expected payments and likelihood of payments for ARC-CO and PLC.  Payment estimates are provided for the program years from 2019 to 2023.  Users can select the state, county, and crop combination that they wish to consider.

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2024 Farm Bill What if Tool

This program calculates Agricultural Risk Coverage for County Coverage (ARC-CO), Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments, and ARC at the Individual Level (ARC-IC). County yields and market year average (MYA) prices are brought in for a user-specified state-county-crop combination. Users then can change county yields and prices to see ARC-CO and PLC payments under those yields and prices.

farmdoc YouTube Channel: 2018 Farm Bill Videos

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The ARC/PLC Decision in December 2019

Yield Updating Decisions Under the 2018 Farm Bill

5-Minute farmdoc: 2018 Farm Bill What-If Tool

Accounts for the Gardner Payment Calculator

Using the Gardner ARC/PLC Payment Calculator

farmdoc Daily: Farm Bill Articles

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Potential Federal Policy Responses to Negative Grain Farm Incomes

In 2024, grain farm incomes will be low and, in many cases, negative. In recent weeks, hurricanes Helene and Milton have also caused extensive damage to many farmers caught in their paths. Congress remains in recess through election day, Nov. 5, 2024, but the push for federal relief is growing. Federal policy responses in the lame duck are likely and include: 1) extending the current or passing a new farm bill and 2) passing an ad hoc, supplemental, or emergency disaster assistance package.

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2024 Low Returns, Prices, and the Federal Safety Net

A steep decline in prices across years has resulted in low to negative average returns to Midwest farms in 2023 and projected for 2024. Crop insurance programs are not designed to cover the risk of multi-year price declines and current commodity title programs are also expected to provide little relief for these low prices. Modifying commodity title programs to make them more market-responsive would aid in providing relief to farmers.

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Reviewing the Congressional Budget Office Score of the House Farm Bill

CBO cost estimates are typically critical pieces of Farm Bill reauthorization, while also providing useful transparency about complex legislation. Such is the case with CBO’s score of the Farm Bill reported by the House Agriculture Committee, exposing the likely increases in farm program payments juxtaposed against reductions in food assistance for low-income households. Either alone may present near-insurmountable barriers to Farm Bill reauthorization but combined sound the death knell for it.

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Cotton STAX and Modified Supplemental Coverage Option: Concerns with Moving Crop Insurance from Risk Management to Income Support

The Farm Bill version reported by the House Agricultural Committee would modify Supple-mental Coverage Option (SCO), a crop insurance policy that provides county-level coverage. Be-cause the modifications proposed for SCO would make it very similar to the STAX insurance pro-gram for cotton, we evaluate the historical performance of STAX to provide indications of how modified SCO could operate.

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Farm Bill Proposals to Enhance Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO)

Both the House and Senate versions of the farm bill include proposals to modify Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) insurance. SCO crop insurance provides county-level coverage from the selected coverage level on a farm-level crop insurance product up to a fixed maximum coverage level based on county-level results. This article examines the impacts of the SCO version proposed by the House for corn in McLean County, Illinois. Overall, increasing SCO subsidy levels seems questionable as a policy objective. At best, farmers risk management is improved marginally at high costs to the Federal government. A better focus would be on enhancing the protection of the underlying farm-level product.

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Spending Impacts of House Proposal for Commodity Title Changes

The House Proposal for the Commodity Title would significantly increase commodity title spending. Farmers with base acres of the Southern crops (peanuts, rice, and cotton) would have much higher increases in payments than farmers with base acres of those program crops grown in most of the country. The House Proposal would increase payments more for southern and Delta states than for other regions.

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Statutory Reference Prices and the Next Farm Bill

Both the House and Senate Ag Committees are considering increases to the statutory reference prices for some or all program crops. Increasing statutory reference prices would result in the largest increase in spending of the changes being discussed for the commodity title. Moreover, raising statutory reference prices will have disproportionate impacts across crops, increasing commodity program spending proportionally more for peanuts, rice, and seed cotton than for corn, soybeans, and wheat.

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Base Acre Updating in the Next Farm Bill

Voluntary base acre updates will not reduce discrepancies between base acres from current planting. Solving under-based issues with a voluntary update can occur, but Federal spending will increase. Mandatory updates can more effectively reduce differences between base and planted acres. Moreover, adding base acres with a mandatory update is possible at lower costs than with a voluntary update. However, mandatory updates will cause some farms and regions to lose commodity title support relative to current levels.

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Price Loss Coverage: Evaluation of Proportional Increase in Statutory Reference Price and a Proposal

The next farm bill is currently being debated, and one proposal receiving attention is to increase statutory reference prices by the same percentage for all program crops. A straight percentage increase in statutory reference prices will further advantage peanuts and rice while having little impact on soybeans. As a result, changes to other commodity title programs likely are needed. Soybeans, corn, and wheat would likely benefit more from improving ARC than from increasing reference prices.

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A View of the Farm Bill Through Policy Design, Part 4: ARC and PLC

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we continue our multi-part series presenting a view of the Farm Bill through perspectives of policy design. This article turns to the farm payment programs in Title I of the Farm Bill and explores the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) row crop programs. If the words of statutes determine the operation of policies and the distribution of benefits, then the PLC and ARC programs offer straight-forward examples.

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Farm Bill 2023: Another Perspective on Reference Prices and Base Acres

The calendar continues to countdown towards the scheduled expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill, but there have been no public indications that either the House or Senate Agriculture Committees have…

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Farm Bill 2023: The Intersection of Base Acres and Reference Prices

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we look at the intersection of base acres and reference prices. A mandatory base acre update that better aligns program payments with planted acres will impact states and crops to different degrees depending on where Congress established reference prices relative to market prices. It is at this intersection that the political collisions within the farm coalition occur as farmers, commodity factions, and production regions are pitted against each other.

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