Odds and Ends
Aug. 15 is the end of the primary nesting period, established years ago in response to wildlife organizations. Any time after Aug. 15 that a Conservation Reserve Program participant wants to clip/mow grass CRP cover, it is allowed. Plus, any other management activity on CRP cover that is grass or trees can occur.
July 15 was to be the final date to file a 2025 acreage report, but USDA extended the deadline to file to Aug. 15 due to the rainfall earlier this year. Failure to report your acres, planted on each field, is a violation of your 2025 Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs contract and you will remain ineligible for any benefits until a 2025 acreage report is filed. After Aug. 15, that acreage report will be considered late-filed and a fee will be required.
Late-filed acreage reports have very strict requirements. Producers who wait too long to late-file their acreage report, wait until after the crop is harvested and no evidence of that crop exists, will not be allowed to use any other source like crop insurance acreage reports or other documentation. FSA must be able to see the physical evidence of the crop. A producer who has not filed should know if they did not visit the local FSA office this summer after planting, but if a producer is not sure, it only takes a call to FSA to find out. Failure to know that you had to file an acreage report is not a reason to avoid a late-filed fee on each farm certified.
In past years, the special disaster program, COVID and Pandemic Assistance Program, and marketing flexibility programs which help offset low prices have been invented and funded after the fact, so to speak. Meaning, the programs may have occurred after the year that the acreage report should have been filed and in many cases long after any evidence of the crop is gone. Each of the special programs requires a certified acreage report to be on file with FSA in that particular year to be eligible for any program benefits. So, it can be very costly not to file, and just how costly may not be evident until it is too late. However, a late filing fee is not that much to make sure eligibility is maintained for USDA programs.
July 31 was the end of the 2024 cotton marketing year, the end of the one-year period in which the marketing average price of seed cotton would be determined. While that price is weighed based on prices at the time cotton is sold, July 31 is the last day for the 2024 crop.
The 2024 wheat marketing year deadline has already passed. Grains like soybeans, corn, milo and rice are all coming up over the next several months. Prices for all these crops are low enough that some kind of ARC/PLC payment is likely to be disbursed
2024 ARC/PLC payments, if any are due, will be made in October and November.
