Producers can elect coverage and enroll in crop-by-crop Agricultural Risk Coverage-County (ARC-CO) or Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs within each Farm Service Agency (FSA) farm unit, or ARC-Individual for the entire farm, for the 2024 crop year, says Ron Haugen, North Dakota State University Extension farm management specialist.

With the extension of the farm bill, the election is in play again this year, Haugen says. Also, this is the first year in which the effective reference price formula kicked in for major crops. The soybean reference price increased from $8.40 to $9.26 and the corn reference price increased from $3.70 to $4.01. This makes the ARC-PLC decision more important.

The election deadline is March 15.

ARC provides income support payments on historical base acres when actual crop revenue declines below a specified guaranteed level. PLC provides income support payments on historical base acres when the national marketing year average price for a covered commodity falls below its effective reference price.

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.

NDSU Extension has developed online tools to aid producers in making this decision. The tools can be found at ndsu.ag/farm-management.

Contact your local FSA office to make this election.

For more information on ARC and PLC, producers can go to the FSA website at https://www.fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc or contact their local FSA office.

NDSU Agriculture Communication – Jan. 24, 2024

Source: Ron Haugen, 701-231-8103, ronald.haugen@ndsu.edu

Editor: Kelli Anderson, 701-231-7006, kelli.c.anderson@ndsu.edu