The following maps show projected 2014 crop ARC-CO payments per base acre by county, crop, and practice across Nebraska from analysis on available yield and price estimates as of mid-September, 2015.
Yield estimates come from published yields per harvested acre released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) (available at http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/), but will be adjusted by the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) to account for failed acres when calculating official yields per planted acre for purposes of the ARC-CO calculations. Price estimates come from the USDA-FSA and the USDA World Agricultural Outlook Board (WAOB) based on the "World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates" report published by USDA-WAOB on September 11, 2015 (available at http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/index.htm).
Using the yield and price estimates for the 2014 crop, estimated ARC-CO payment rates are calculated based on the difference between actual revenue and the ARC-CO revenue guarantee, subject to a minimum of $0.00 and a maximum equal to 10% of the ARC-CO benchmark revenue. The projected ARC-CO payment rates are shown in the table in the PDF, but are subject to a payment factor of 85% since ARC-CO payments are paid on only 85% of base acres. Alternatively, calculating the payment rate by 85% provides a projected payment per base acre on 100% of the base acres. This projected payment per base acre is also shown in the table in the PDF and is the basis for the following maps of projected ARC-CO payments per base acre. As a note, farm program payments are subject to budget sequestration. Commodity program payments are expected to be reduced approximately 7% from calculated levels. That is not factored into the calculated payment rates shown in the tables and the maps, but should be considered when estimating actual payments on a farm.
An accompanying PDF document contains additional data and calculations on every available county-crop-practice combination for ARC-CO in Nebraska. Some combinations currently have missing data due to a lack of published county yield data or a lack of yield data published by irrigated and nonirrigated practice. That data will be published by USDA-FSA and added to the analysis as it is finalized for purposes of calculating ARC-CO payments.
