Two important deadlines are quickly approaching for Hoosier farmers. Farm Service Agency Administrator Richard Fordyce says one of those is the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program Part Two deadline on December 11th. The program has already assisted many producers across the country, but time is growing short to get new applications submitted by the deadline.
“We’ve had a tremendous response to CFAP 2. As of Monday, well over 11 billion dollars has gone out to producers in payments, and that has gone to almost 704,000 different producers,” he said. “In the CFAP 2 program, we continue to get applications, and that dollar amount continues to climb. But as a reminder, folks need to at least make their county office aware that they want to sign up for CFAP 2 and need to do that before December 11th.”
Fordyce added the second round of CFAP assistance covers more commodities than the first round did.
“Sales commodities, which are going to primarily be specialty crops and aquaculture species; price-trigger commodities, and those are going to be our traditional row crops, livestock, and dairy; and then we have a category called flat-rate row crops, which would be those that either didn’t meet a five percent price decline or we didn’t have sufficient data to determine that they had hit a five percent price decline, and those will be paid based on 2020 planted acres at 15 dollars an acre. There are some exceptions, but just about anything our farmers and ranchers are producing is likely eligible.”
December 11th is also the deadline to sign up for the Dairy Margin Coverage Program. Fordyce says the DMC is the Farm Service Agency’s primary risk management program, and it’s much improved over the version that began in the 2014 Farm Bill.
“It was revised and improved in the 2018 Farm Bill,” said Fordyce. “Congress listened to the concerns of the dairy sector, made some improvements, raised the coverage levels, lowered the premiums, and changed a little bit about how we figure margin. They put some components in that cost piece of the equation that likely more truly reflects the cost of feed. If you’re a dairy operator and you haven’t signed up for the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, I would strongly urge you to take a look at that.”
As the deadline draws closer, producers may find it more convenient to schedule an appointment at their local FSA office.
“2019 was our first year of coverage, and we had over 22,000 operations that signed up before we saw it fall off a bit during the 2020 coverage year, but we anticipate good sign up for 2021. Anytime we have a sign-up deadline, human nature is that we know we have a deadline, but we have time to sign up. We see this in a lot of our programs. Things really ramp up as the deadline gets closer during that last week. We’re on pace to be close to the 2020 sign up numbers, but again, I want to encourage dairy farmers who haven’t signed up yet to take a look at the Dairy Margin Coverage Program.”
Producers can also find CFAP 2information at www.farmers.gov/cfap, or go to www.fsa.usda.gov and search under programs and services to find DMC information.
Source: NAFB News