New Tools Available To Calculate Projected Payments Granted By 2014 Farm Bill

Jul 29, 2015

By Alejandro Plastina

Three new resources have been developed by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach to help Iowa corn and soybean producers calculate Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage payments for the 2014 and 2015 crop years. Posted on Ag Decision Maker, these tools will help farmers who enroll in these programs from the 2014 Farm Bill calculate the amount of the government payment if prices and/or county revenues are down.

“Both the Agricultural Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage payments depend on the marketing year average or MYA prices for commodities such as barley, corn, grain sorghum, oats, soybeans and wheat.” said Alejandro Plastina, assistant professor and extension economics specialist with Iowa State University.

For corn and soybeans, the official 2014 MYA price will be announced by USDA in early September 2015. Until then, the actual amount of these payments will be unknown," Plastina said. "However, using county yields and price projections published by USDA, these payments for the 2014 and 2015 crop years can be reasonably projected by the new calculation tools.” The projected prices used in the ARC/PLC payment calculators will be updated monthly.

The Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC-CO) program is based on county revenues and acts like a type of insurance for crop producers. When yields fall below a certain level, farmers who have selected this coverage, are paid the slight difference.

Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments offer protection when the actual crop price drops below its ‘reference price’ for that commodity set in the 2014 Farm Bill. PLC payments occur if the MYA price is lower than the reference price: $3.70 per bushel of corn, and $8.40 per bushel of soybeans.

“If ARC/PLC payments are triggered for the 2014 crop year, they will be issued after the end of the marketing year when USDA announces the official MYA price, but not before Oct. 1, 2015,” said Plastina. “The 2015 crop year ARC/PLC payments won’t be verified until the fall of 2016.”

Source:iastate.edu

Video: Is China Buying US Soybeans + USDA Nov 14th Crop Report could be “Game Changing”

After a week of a U.S./China trade truce, markets/trade is skeptical that we have not seen a signed agreement nor heard much from China or seen any details. There are rumors that China is buying soybean futures & not the physical. Trust in Trump?
12 MMT of U.S. soybean purchases by China by year-end is better than 0 but we all need to give it more time and give it a chance to unfold. China did lower the tariffs on Ag and is buying U.S. wheat and sorghum.
U.S. supreme court could rule against Trumps tariffs, but the Trump administration does have a plan B.
U.S. government shutdown is now the longest in history at 38 days.
But despite a U.S. government shutdown we will be getting a USDA November crop report next Friday and it could be “game changing.” If the USDA provides a bullish surprise with lower U.S. corn and soybean yields and ending stocks that are lower than expected both corn and soybean futures will break out above their ceilings at $4.35/bu and $11.35/bu respectively.
The funds continued their selling in live and feeder cattle futures on continued fears that the Trump administration want to lower U.S. beef prices. The fundamentals have not changed, only market psychology has.
Stocks markets continue to worry about a weak U.S. job market, but you can blame ChatGPT for that. In the future, we will have a more efficient, productive and growing economy with a higher unemployment rate until we have more skilled AI workers.
After 34 new record highs in the S & P 500 and 124 new records in the NASDAQ in 2025 we are back to a correction and investor profit taking as AI valuations may have gotten too stretched near-term ahead of NVDA’s 3rd quarter earnings announcement on Nov. 19th. But this is not an AI bubble.
75% of Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk!
It has rained in South America in the last 7 days, but both the American and European models agree that Central Brazil remains dry in the next 14-days!

NASA research could help Canadian farmers

National Farmers’ Market Week in Maryland