The U.S. Department of Agriculture today unveiled new online programs intended to help farmers choose between ARC and PLC.
The 2014 farm bill requires producers to pick either Agricultural Risk Coverage, which protects against falling revenue, or Price Loss Coverage, which provides payments when crop prices fall below levels set in the farm bill.
Farmers must choose carefully, as once the decision is made, the producer is locked in for five years. Producers will have through early spring of 2015 to select which program works best for their businesses.
Farmers and agricultural economists have said the issue is complicated and that making the best decision will be difficult.
In response, USDA provided $3 million to the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri and the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M (co-leads for the National Association of Agricultural and Food Policy), along with the University of Illinois (lead for the National Coalition for Producer Education) to develop the new programs.
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The new tools were announced by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.
"Farming is one of the riskiest businesses in the world. These new programs help ensure that risk can be effectively managed so that families don't lose farms that have been passed down through generations because of events beyond their control," he says in a prepared release.
The tools can be found at www.fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc .
