By Jana Rose Schleis
Last month, Congress passed an extension of the federal Farm Bill, and with it $10 billion in economic assistance for commodity farmers. University of Missouri agriculture economists have developed a tool to help farmers calculate the cash they’ll receive.
Alejandro Plastina is director of the MU Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center and said the tool can help producers learn how much money they qualify for depending on the crops they grow and amount of acres they plant.
“Each farm is different from their neighbors, and they have different combinations of crops at any point in time based on their own rotations,” Plastina said. “So exactly how much a farmer will collect from this program will depend on the commodities that each farmer is typically producing.”
Plastina said knowing the estimated amount of federal financial assistance is essential for farm planning, giving producers information needed before applying for crop insurance plans and loans.
“Knowing how much money can come through this program can help the farmer know how much money will be needed for financing the operations over the next six months, or 12 months, or 18 months,” he said.
The subsidy calculator can be downloaded from the MU Food & Agriculture Policy Research Center. After entering the amount of acres farmers have in each of the eligible crops, the tool will calculate the estimated total payment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to distribute payments by the end of March.
Right before the 2018 federal Farm Bill was set to expire in December, Congress passed the extension. The $10 billion economic assistance added to the bill is for commodity crop farmers facing tightened profit margins.
Plastina said all the major crop commodities, including those produced in the Midwest corn, soybeans, wheat and barley qualify for payments.
“I think the intention of Congress was to supplement liquidity or income . to farmers going through those rough patches until we have a better Farm Bill, hopefully in 2025,” he said.
The 5-year food and farm legislation has been extended twice. Lawmakers now have until November to craft a new bill.
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