Farm Bill base acre
correction deadline fast approaching
In July, farm landowners received a base acre and yield commodity crop history summary letter from their Farm Service Agency (FSA) office. The summary letter lists the landowner’s FSA farm planted acres for 2008 through 2012. Landowners have 60 days from the time they received the summary letter to contact the FSA office if there are any discrepancies in the data listed. This information is essential to being able to sign up for the new 2014 Farm Bill programs.
There have been instances in which the summary lists no data or the data is incorrect. If the data is missing or the data listed in the summary letter is incorrect, the landowner should contact the FSA office in the county where the land is located. If the landowner rents the land to a tenant, the tenant can contact the FSA office on the landowner’s behalf. Once contacted, the FSA office staff can research and correct the base acre information for the specific FSA farm.
The 60-day deadline is required only if there are errors in the base acres listed in the summary letter. If the data listed is correct, the landowner does not have to do anything. The deadline has nothing to do with the Farm Bill provision for reallocation of base acres and updating FSA yields. Those decision deadlines have not yet been announced.
“Producers and landowners will need to make a series of decisions related to Farm Bill enrollment over the next few months. This is a first step,” said Gary Hachfeld, regional Extension educator.
If landowners have questions about the base acre summary letter they received, they should contact the FSA office in the county where land is located. Staff will answer questions and assist with correcting any discrepancies that may exist in the base acre data. For additional information on the 2014 Farm Bill and other farm management topics go to www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/business.
Goehring tells federal panel
farmers need dependable rail service
FARGO – Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring told the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) that farmers, processors and commodity shippers want to know that the chronic cycle of railcar shortages and rail delays can be broken and that progress is being made to find real solutions to North Dakota rail problems.
“I’m not telling railroads how to run their businesses,” Goehring said. “I’m telling them they have businesses here in North Dakota that they need to serve.”
Goehring spoke Thursday morning in the opening round of testimony during the STB’s public field hearing in Fargo. Also testifying were Gov. Jack Dalrymple, members of the state’s congressional delegation and other North Dakota, Minnesota and South Dakota state officials.
“A reliable and accessible transportation system is necessary in North Dakota and throughout the entire upper Midwest,” Goehring said. “In North Dakota, 82 percent of our grain and oilseeds move via rail with a significant portion of these shipments traveling nearly 1,500 miles to the Pacific Northwest. The distance our products need to travel for export and processing requires timely shipping.”
The commissioner said unprecedented shipment delays by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Canadian Pacific (CP) has created a problem that leaves farmers with the only option of storing their crops, which he termed “is an unacceptable solution.”
“Both BNSF and CP need to prioritize grain and oilseed shipments,” Goehring said. “For example, soybean shipments have a very small window to meet marketing demand in Asia and Southeast Asia. These products must be shipped between October and February, demonstrating the need for certainty in our rail service because we cannot store our way to prosperity.”
Goehring said BNSF’s recent efforts to add locomotives and employees; lay new track and improve communication with the agriculture community are appreciated, but that much more needs to be done.”
“However, agriculture products have to be moved by both companies,” he said. “I am more disturbed when I hear stories about individuals who haven’t seen grain cars from CP in months; it is clear that the backlog is not the only problem.”
Goehring said the situation is bad now, but could become desperate in coming months.
“Planted acres in North Dakota for corn, soybeans and wheat are at record-breaking or at near record levels this year,” he said. “This should be good news instead; it is increasing producer anxiety because these products could be trapped within the system on farms or in elevators. The fact that more than 15 percent of our 2013 crop is still in storage compounds the problem.”
He urged the STP to take strong action.
“With 2013 crop still needing to be moved and this year’s harvest fast approaching, we need to know that plans are in place so we can enter the 2014-15 marketing year with confidence,” he said. “Producers want to know that this cycle can be broken and that progress is being made with real solutions for our real problems.
North Dakota bee
colonies hit all-time high
Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring says more than a half-million bee colonies, another significant record, have been registered in North Dakota this year.
“Not only are the number of colonies and beekeepers up, so is compliance,” Goehring said. “In the meantime, we are getting fewer landowner complaints about bee colonies.
Goehring said 221 beekeepers have registered 510,000 colonies in 2014, compared to 205 beekeepers and 482,500 colonies in 2013. More than 12,200 hive locations have been registered, compared to 11,000 last year.
Goehring credited the North Dakota Department of Agriculture apiary staff with taking action to improve compliance.
“The staff has made numerous phone calls to beekeepers reminding them to register locations and to appropriately identify their hives,” Goehring said. “They also conducted education and outreach efforts to help beekeepers better understand the regulations. This has led to a spike in compliance.”
Goehring said disease and other threats to bee populations continue to be a concern across the nation. In 2013, he convened two state-wide meetings of beekeepers and landowners to resolve differences and to develop collaborative efforts to benefit all parties. The result was the North Dakota Pollinator Plan, the only such plan in the U.S.
“The pollinator plan was developed in response to a growing need for a balanced public policy that mitigates risk to honey bees, while minimizing the impact of that mitigation on production agriculture to prevent unintended consequences,” Goehring said. “I believe that through enhanced communications and by working together we can achieve these goals.”
North Dakota has led the nation in honey production for the past decade. In 2013, the state produced more than 33 million pounds of honey, 22 percent of the national total.
FairRent is available online
The Center for Farm Financial Management, part of University of Minnesota Extension, has just released a tool to help producers and landlords evaluate alternative land rental arrangements.
FairRent for the web is a new and improved web version of the FairRent desktop software that CFFM has distributed for more than 20 years.
Land rent negotiations are going to be very challenging this year. At current commodity prices it is going to be important for producers to know their costs and look at options to limit downside risk.
“The common reaction we get to ‘FairRent’ is that there is no such thing,” said Dale Nordquist, CFFM Extension economist. “And that will likely be true this year. It looks like there will be a large divide between breakeven rental rates and the current market for cash rents. Given this divide, it will be even more important for everyone to be equipped with the numbers when they enter into this fall’s negotiations.”
One option to limit risk might be a flexible cash lease, one that shares the risk of low prices and/or yields with the landlord while rewarding the landlord with a portion of the gains if prices and/or yields exceed expectations. The new web version of FairRent includes the option to evaluate seven different flex lease options as well as traditional cash rent and share rental returns. Another improvement is the inclusion of crop insurance in the analysis to show how insurance limits downside risk.
FairRent is free. Just sign up at https://fairrent.umn.edu/ and begin creating rental plans. Also, FINBIN (http://www.finbin.umn.edu/) is a great source of information of crop production costs for rental plans.