Iowa State University's Ag Decision Maker website is a great resource to evaluate ARC-CO and PLC. As a reminder, PLC is  triggered if the Marketing Year Average Price is lower than the Effective Reference Price. The Effective Reference Price is $3.70 for corn and $8.40 for soybeans. ARC-CO is triggered if the actual county revenue [...]

Reminder You will need to elect PLC or ARC-CO by March 15, 2021 for the 2021 crop year. Farm Bill elections will be an annual election in 2021, 2022, and 2023. If you fail to make an election by March 15, you will default to the 2019 & 2020 election. Here is a brief description [...]

ECO dollar per acre coverage will be determined by your individual APH. You can elect 95% coverage, which gives you a 9% coverage band. Or you could elect 90% coverage which gives you a 4% coverage band. Let's take a look at how the ECO dollars per acre coverage is calculated. In this example, a [...]

Starting in 2021, a Beginning Farmer & Rancher (BFR) can use a Previous Producer's yield history. There are a few requirements to meet: The BFR must have been involved in the decision making of a farming operation. The BFR must have actively participated in the crops being planted. The Previous Producer must give consent for [...]

Written by: Kyle Meyer, CPA This newsletter is meant to give you a brief overview of how insurance proceeds are treated in the tax law and give you some strategies to avoid unnecessary taxes. Crop Insurance Proceeds from crop insurance, as a result of crop damage or revenue protection, are considered taxable income. These are [...]

2020 Harvest Price Corn $3.99 Soybeans $10.55   Both corn and soybean harvest prices are higher than the Projected Price that was set last February.   2020 Projected Price  Corn $3.88 Soybeans $9.17   Most farmers carry Revenue Protection and are guaranteed the higher of the Projected Price (spring price) or Harvest Price. 2020 claims [...]

Rain makes grain...variable yields and rainfall have been the hot topics as farmers harvest. Which fields got timely rain? How did that impact yields? Here is a chart that shows rainfall by location in June, July, and August. *Compared to 30 year average is from October 2019 - October 2020.  *Data was captured by Climate.  [...]

Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) was released by RMA as a new crop insurance product for the 2021 season. What is ECO? ECO is an area-based crop insurance product that allows you to cover from 86% up to 90% or 95% of the county's expected crop value. How does ECO fit into my crop insurance plan? [...]

CFAP 2 payments are now available through December 11. Complete an application Here is the link to the application page - https://www.farmers.gov/cfap/apply I have applications in my office that can be completed and returned the FSA office. I can provide your total reported acres for 2020 and your 2020 APH.  Payments Corn payments: 2020 Reported [...]

The Derecho Storm on 8/10/2020 caused widespread damage and left farmers with decisions to make on damaged crops. Let's talk about federal crop insurance. The first question is... can the crop be mechanically harvested? If normal harvesting methods and equipment can be used to harvest the crop, the crop would be considered harvestable. Normal harvesting [...]