Nebraska Extension and the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) in Nebraska recently completed a series of more than 30 farm bill producer education meetings across the state. The meetings reached thousands of producers, landowners, and ag professionals and provided information on farm program details and producer enrollment and election decisions between the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs.

The two presentations delivered at those meetings, one from Extension and one from FSA have been recorded and posted for information and review as producers and landowners analyze their farm program options and decisions. Producers will find it worth their time to review the material and analyze their program choices, but they should be prepared to make a timely, informed decision before the pending March 15 sign-up deadline at their local FSA office.

Brad Lubben, Extension Policy Specialist, and Cathy Anderson, Chief Specialist for Production and Compliance Programs for FSA in Nebraska discuss the program details of ARC and PLC and the decisions producers face in the videos. Producers can choose between ARC at the county level (ARC-CO) or PLC on a farm-by-farm (FSA farm number), crop-by-crop basis. Producers can also choose to enroll the entire farm (FSA farm number) in ARC at the individual coverage or farm level (ARC-IC), noting that all of a producer’s farm interests enrolled in ARC-IC bundle together into one guarantee for revenue protection.

The decision between ARC-CO, PLC, or ARC-IC is substantially different than it was during sign-up under the last farm bill in 2014. Changing market price levels and expectations affect relative protection levels in each of the programs and may affect producer decisions. In addition, the current election decision between ARC-CO, PLC, or ARC-IC is only for the two-year period covering the 2019 and 2020 crop production years, unlike the 2014 decision that locked producers into a program for 2014-2018. Producers can consider these factors in looking at the upcoming farm program decision and can review the videos for background information and details as they analyze their choices. The videos are available on the web at https://agecon.unl.edu/video-2018-farm-bill-details-and-decisions#page1 with links on that webpage to the full video or to a series of shorter videos. The short web address to go to that page is http://go.unl.edu/farmbillvideo.