The 2018 Farm Bill, which was enacted in December 2018, continued the grain and oilseed program that was created by the 2014 Farm Bill.  The ARC (Agricultural Risk Coverage) and PLC (Price Loss Coverage) options are more complicated than the commodity programs that existed prior to 2014.  The 2018 Farm Bill offered farmers opportunities to prove crop yields, and to choose price protection (PLC) or revenue protection (ARC) on a farm-by-farm, crop-by-crop basis.  During the initial signup, producers only had to make an ARC vs PLC decision that covered the 2019 and 2020 crop years.  For the 2021, 2022, and 2023 crop years, producers will have the opportunity to switch from ARC to PLC, or vice versa, for each crop on each farm.  

    Signup for this program began September 3, 2019 at USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices and ran through March 15, 2020.  The decisions that producers made during this signup are extremely important because there are potentially several million dollars of ARC and PLC payments that may be paid to Todd County farmers during the five-year life of this bill.  In the current farm economy, these payments will be critical to the survival of many farm operations.  

    Due to an extended crop harvest season there was almost no signup activity at the local USDA Office in the fall of 2019.  In December, Todd County Farm Service Agency (FSA) County Executive Director (CED) Grant Hildebrand and I held our first 2018 Farm Bill educational meeting to try to jump-start sign-up interest.  I utilized Farm Bill resources from the University of Illinois (2018 Farm Bill What If Tool) and Kansas State University (Tradeoff Between 2019/2020 ARC and PLC) to create a PowerPoint and other educational materials that I used for meeting presentations and for individual producer consultations.  

     A second Todd County Farm Bill meeting was held in January utilizing UK Grain Marketing Specialist, Dr. Todd Davis as a resource.  CED Hildebrand and I conducted a third Farm Bill educational program in February, and I worked with another 35 producers individually on evaluating their Farm Bill signup options.  Altogether, about 120 producers and/or landowners attended the meetings or were assisted individually.  

     Farm Bill education was also a part of the program at the February 2020 KY-TN Grain Day hosted by the Extension Offices of Todd and Logan County, KY and Montgomery and Robertson County, TN.  Approximately 160 producers received Farm Bill information at that educational event. 

     It turned out that farmers were very fortunate that the Farm Bill signup window closed on March 15.  They were able to complete their signups just before Covid-19 restrictions limited public access to USDA FSA offices in mid-March.