Author: Thomas Miller
Planning Unit: Ballard County CES
Major Program: Ag Policy
Plan of Work: Farm Bill Producer and Landowner Education
Outcome: Initial Outcome
The sign-up process for the 2020 Farm Bill left producers with many questions and options they needed to consider when signing up each of their individual farm numbers. FSA is forbidden from helping producers make these decisions so it has been a long standing tradition for Tom Miller, Ballard County Extension Agent for Ag and Natural Resources to partner with the Ballard/ McCracken FSA office to help educate farmers on how to make the best decisions for their operations. On January 7, 2020, Fifty seven producers attended a training session at the Ballard County Extension Office. Tom Miller conducted the meeting, showing what stayed the same and what changed in the new Farm Bill and gave demonstrations of a calculator developed at the University of Illinois and spread sheets developed at Kansas State University that allowed each producers to enter their own production information to determine the proper decision to be made for their individual operations. Melissa Myers, local FSA CED was on hand to answer any procedural questions about the sign–up process. At the conclusion of the meeting a producer survey showed that 93 % of attendees felt more comfortable with the decisions they needed to make and 86% felt they could now make the decisions on their own. After the meeting, Tom Miller performed many one on one sessions with growers and especially with Land owners over the next 2 months at the request of the FSA to help people make the best decisions.
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