Farm Bill Crops Meetings

It was exactly one year ago today that President Trump signed the new Farm Bill into law. Like the past Farm Bill farmers need to sign up for the Farm Bill each year. So, we are one year into the 5 year Farm Bill and farmers have not yet been able to sign up. It took all this time for the USDA to write the policies and procedures to implement the new Farm Bill.

This means that when we sign up for the Farm Bill we will sign up for last year and next year. Like the last Farm Bill a choice needs to be made between ARC County, Price Loss Coverage (PLC) or ARC Individual. The choice we make will be binding for the first two years of the Farm Bill. Then each year after that we can choose which program we want for that year. That is a major change as the old Farm Bill we were locked into our choice for the entire 5 years of the Farm Bill.

The question is which program should you choose? It is a major advantage because we have an idea what our county yield averages will be for the 2019 crop year. So that farmers can make a good decision about which program to choose the Minnesota Farm Service Agency and University of Minnesota Extension Service will be holding free meetings all around Minnesota in January.

The entire list of all the meetings is on the University of Minnesota Extension web site. Here are a few of the meetings in our immediate area. You do not even have to pre-register, just show up!

January 8, 2020 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in St Peter at the St Peter Community Center

Wednesday January 8, 2020 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm in Zumbrota at the VFW

January 23, 2020 10:00 am to 12:00 pm in Owatonna at the Steele County Community Center

January 23, 2020 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm in Albret Lea at the Freeborn County Fairgrounds

Monday January 27, 2020 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm at the RCC Heintz Center Commons