Northwest Iowa — Here we are in the middle of winter. If you’re not familiar with how crop farming works, you may get the impression that not much would be going on right now, as this is, after all, the off season. Well, you’d be wrong.
This is the time of year when crop farmers plan for the next growing season. And one of the things they have to do is make an appointment with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) office.
The northwest Iowa FSA offices are strongly encouraging producers to contact the FSA office now to set up an appointment or arrange for contracts to be sent out to them. If you have any changes, FSA officials say they will also need to know these ahead so they have time to make the necessary changes. All shareholders must sign the contracts.
The deadline is March 15th, and FSA officials remind you it is fast approaching.
The FSA is encouraging producers to contact their local USDA Service Centers to make or change elections and to enroll for 2022 Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC), providing future protections against market fluctuations. The election and enrollment period opened on October 18, 2021 and runs through March 15, 2022.
Producers can elect coverage and enroll in ARC-CO or PLC, which are both crop-by-crop, or ARC-IC, which is for the entire farm. Although election changes for 2022 are optional, producers must enroll through a signed contract each year. Also, if a producer has a multi-year contract on the farm and makes an election change for 2022, it will be necessary to sign a new contract.
FSA officials tell us that if an election is not submitted by the deadline of March 15, 2022, the election remains the same as the 2021 election for crops on the farm. Farm owners cannot enroll in either program unless they have an interest in the farm’s crops. Covered commodities include barley, canola, large and small chickpeas, corn, crambe, flaxseed, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, dry peas, rapeseed, long grain rice, medium and short-grain rice, safflower seed, seed cotton, sesame, soybeans, sunflower seed, and wheat.
For more information, call your county FSA office.
