How Did You Make Your Farm Bill Decision?

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

What tools did you use to make your farm bill decision?

I tried the OSU/KSU online tool and the Illinois tool.  Looked at Iowa State.  I'm not sure they did me all that much good.  I heard differentn presentations at a couple of Iowa State extension meetings.  

I read varous internet articles here and other places.

My decisions were highly influenced by the fact that I do not take crop insurance and am not enrolled in the farm bill.  I updated yields and reallocated base acres.  Then, I picked PLC for corn and ARC-CO for soybeans rather casually, since I don't expect to need them myself but if I sell out or die maybe it matters to someone.

Did you find the decision easy or hard?  Did you use one tool (which one?) or many (which ones?)

[BA Deere]

I used the "bird in the hand" method and that is ARC-CO $80 right in my backpocket this year and maybe something next year. Individual would`ve taken a 220bu corn yield proven, because of the "65% vs 85%" payment difference.  PLC wouldn`t pay anything...maybe down the line it will, but we`ll be in a heck of a shape if it does. 

http://www.farmcpatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/All-US-ARC-CO-Payment-Estimates.pdf  

btw I rounded the "$80" up, to me it`s $80.   🙂

[dennymal]

I'm with B.A.-I took the ARC-CO on both beans and corn. The trigger for a PLC payment is to low. A person would really have to be bearish for that option. Plus the 75-80 dollar payment for next year on corn and probably some the following year was just to much to turn down. Like the FSA person that helped me through the process his thoughts and I agree-if corn is low enough to trigger a payment on PLC a lot of us farmers will be in trouble so I'm sure the government will revisit the farm bill and come out with something to help us. They will be pressured heavily by the bankers lobby, Monsanto. equipment companies etc. Do you guys agree? Another reason I went with the ARC-CO is I feel sometime in the next five years we will have a short crop and that will present an opportunity to get multiple years hedged

[clayton58]

Marked a dartboard with different options and threw darts!! No, really I went wth arc co on corn and beans and Plc on wheat and milo. I figured crop ins can cover yield risk on dryland crops and Plc will take care of downside on price. I also went with sco for wheat and milo. That may end up being the biggest benefit I gain from the whole bill

[MMG900]

I'm not sure they did me all that much good.

Yep, would totally agree.  Kinda reminds me of  the contest the Wall Street Journal used to have with the blindfolded monkey throwing darts at the stock listing versus the "experts".  I think the monkey did better over time......

Most overhyped topic in Agriculture this decade...

Good luck Jim, hope you are still around for the next farm bill (lower case intentional)

[Kay/NC]

None, really.  We just deafulted to the route taken by the majority of people with base in eah county...that was ARC on some commodties, and PLC on the rest.  I think it was cotton on ARC and corn on PLC...we don't raise row crops, so any payments received are basically offsets to unfunded federal mandates to our local governments, which they get via property taxes, in our minds. 

[k-289]

Un   funded   mandates   ? ? ?

[Kay/NC]

Yes, a great example in NC was Medicaid, which until a lawsuit addressed the issue, had to be partially paid locally. 

The poorer a place is, the more Medicaid recipients had to be carried by what little taxpaying population there was.  Our local property tax rate went up five cents per hundred one year for just a few new drugs that came into widespread usage.  

That cost our household roughly six hundred dollars a year, for drugs we didn't use. 

I think you will see some version of this eventually in states where the ACA ties-in to Medicaid.  Virginia and NC both refused to do so. 

[k-289]

Kinda  like  Medicare  - our 20 something youth paying for something they get no benefit out of ? 

[Kay/NC]

Every worker pays FICA and Medicare taxes. Whether we agree with thise forms of social policy, they are at least universal. I have paid them for forty years now, and haven't drawn a penny yet, have you? In essence, we each build our own benefits someday...you only collect Social Security if you pay into it for a sufficient number of years.

i am talking about confiscatory policies that take money from one group of working people to buy benefits for others who are not working...many of whom have never worked. It creates a sort of death spiral...in poor areas, higher property taxes dissiade businesses from setting up shop, so there are fewer and fewer jobs, so more and more social dependency, which jacks the property taxes to pay for more people on benefits. Thatushes property taxes yet higher, which forces out yet more businesses...and so on.