United States Department of Agriculture Minnesota Farm Service Agency Acting Executive Director Jane Ray announced that approximately 92,000 Minnesota farms who enrolled in the new safety-net programs established by the 2014 Farm Bill will soon begin receiving financial assistance for the 2014 crop year. The programs, known as Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage, are designed to protect against unexpected drops in crop prices or revenues due to market downturns.

“These new safety-net programs provide help when price and revenues fall below normal, unlike the previous direct payments program that provided funds even in good years,” Ray said.  “For example, 87 counties in Minnesota harvest corn and soybeans. For corn and soybean producers, the average price for the market year was higher than the historical benchmark established by the programs, so financial assistance did not occur.”

Similarly, the county-based option of ARC protects against lower revenue from a combination of price and yield.

“Payments by county can vary because average county yields will differ,” Ray said.

Statewide, 92,100 farms participated in ARC-County and 1,880 farms participated in PLC.  More details on the price and yield information used to calculate the financing assistance from the safety-net programs is available on the FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc and www.fsa.usda.gov/mn.