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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2025 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.
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
Reconciliation Bill Proposals to Add Base Acres
The Reconciliation Bills moving through Congress include proposals that would increase the number of base acres eligible for farm program payments. For farms that planted acreage to eligible crops from…
Dramatic Difference in Expected Yields between Corn, Soybeans, and Cotton for Area-Based Insurance Products
Both the House and Senate Reconciliation Bills include provisions to encourage the purchase of the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO). Since 2015 when SCO was first offered, actual county-level yields of corn and soybeans in the Midwest have been above expected yields in most years, implying a continuation of historical increases in yield and lower expectations for indemnities. On the other hand, actual county-level yields have been below expected yields for the majority of years for cotton.
The House Reconciliation Bill Proposal for SCO: Income Support for High-Risk Farmland
The House Reconciliation Bill includes provisions to modify the Supplemental Coverage Option, a crop insurance product providing county coverage above Revenue Protection and other farm-level products. This article examines what the payments would have been from 2015 to 2023 under the proposed structure and finds that the proposed SCO product would have limited benefits to corn and soybean production in many Midwest states. More benefits, however, would have flowed to riskier production regions.
Impacts of Premium Support Increase of Basic and Optional Units in House Reconciliation Bill
The House Reconciliation Bill includes provisions that would increase premium support rates on basic and optional units. Given that farmers do not change their policies, units, or coverage levels, we…
Spending Impacts of PLC and ARC-CO in House Agriculture Reconciliation Bill
The House Reconciliation Bill includes changes to statutory reference prices used to trigger payments from the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program, as well as changes to Agricultural Risk Coverage (see…
Reviewing the House Agriculture Committee’s Reconciliation Bill
Budget reconciliation has begun in the House of Representatives, with multiple committees releasing text and holding business meetings to mark-up the legislation. As part of that process the House Agriculture…
Additional Thoughts on 2025 Crop Insurance and Farm Program Decisions
The deadline to finalize 2025 crop insurance decisions is now less than a week away (March 17th). The harvest futures contracts for corn (December) and soybeans (November) have moved below…
The Arithmetic of Commodity Title Programs
Increasing per-acre corn payments for commodity title programs will have a much more significant effect on total Federal outlays than other crops because corn has many more base acres. Seed cotton, rice, and peanuts have lower base acres; hence, spending increases tend to have much less impact on total Federal outlays. As a result, seed cotton, rice, and peanuts often have larger per-acre increases in spending than does corn. This process is illustrated with the House Proposal for the Farm Bill.
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.
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.
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.
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.