Agricultural producers should start to make elections and enroll in the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs for the 2022 crop year. These key U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) safety-net programs help producers weather fluctuations in either revenue or price for certain crops. Enrollment for the 2022 crop year program closes March 15, 2022.
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 effective price for a covered commodity falls below its reference price.
Covered commodities include Tallahatchie County crops of corn, seed cotton, rice, soybeans, grain sorghum, peanuts and wheat. Producers can elect coverage and enroll in crop-by-crop ARC-County or PLC, or ARC-Individual for the entire farm, for the 2022 crop year. Although election changes for 2022 are optional, 2022 re-enrollment requires a new contract be signed by all producers that share in the crops being grown in 2022. Multi-year enrollment contracts do not have to be signed every year. Those contracts were signed up in 2019 and will run for five years with the original elections. 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.
If a new election on a multi-year contract is not submitted by the deadline of March 15, the election defaults to the current election for crops on the farm from the prior crop year. Producers that changed crop election last year, will have to resign a new contract for 2022 and 2023.
For each of the remaining years of the 2018 Farm Bill, producers will have the opportunity to make new program elections during annual sign-ups. Farm owners cannot enroll in either program unless they have a shared interest in crops produced on the farm. The election decision-making is limited to producers and landowners with an interest in the crops grown on the farm in 2022.
Farms that change operators, owners or producers in 2022 will require a new ARC/PLC contract be signed with FSA.
Producers have several options available to evaluate the best program election option for 2022. Contact your Tallahatchie County FSA for tools available to evaluate options.
