Connection Fall/Winter 2014 | Page 14

FEATURE FARM BILL 2014 Decisions WHAT DOES THE Online tool helps producers choose best options for their operations FARM BILL MEAN FOR YOU? t By Rachael Eilts he 2014 farm bill has brought a lot of major changes to the choices and coverage options available to producers. United Ag hosted a meeting to help producers better understand this new piece of legislation. The speaker was Dr. Joe Outlaw, co-director of the Agricultural Food and Policy Center at Texas A&M University. Outlaw is frequently in Washington, D.C. working on behalf of producers on farm bill legislation. “Dr. Outlaw has probably done more for the farm bill than anyone in Texas,” said Jimmy Roppolo, United Ag’s general manager. The farm bill offers producers several choices. “Choice allows you to fine tune this farm bill for you,” Outlaw said, noting that he fought at Washington for options. However, with choices comes decisions, and with decisions comes the need for analysis. That’s where the decision aid developed by Outlaw and his team at the Agricultural Food and Policy Center comes in. “We don’t want you to make these decisions by guessing,” Outlaw said. He said his team started building the tool two years ago, before the farm bill was even finished. He knew producers would have a lot of decisions to make, and wanted them 14 Find the Agricultural Food & Policy Center’s tool at usda.afpc.tamu.edu to have the best resources possible to make those decisions. The decision aid uses data put in by producers to analyze the results of the various options given to producers, such as agricultural risk coverage versus price loss coverage. The tool runs an analysis 500 times with different prices to provide producers with average data to use as a decision making tool. The tool requires producers to enter information specific to his or her operation, most of which can be found on insurance forms. This includes yield data. Outlaw said the more data entered into the tool, the more accurate the results will be. Outlaw stressed the need to perform as much analysis as possible. He also advised running the tool using bad prices to see which option will provide producers with the best protection. “What’s going to help me when prices get so bad they could knock me out of business?” he said to ask, pointing out that produceres do not need protection from high prices. The tool includes all 21 crops covered by the 2014 farm bill. Cotton is no longer a covered crop, but the tool does include cotton insurance options. To help producers navigate the tool, Outlaw has created a series of podcasts, which can be found at www.afpc.tamu.edu/podcasts/fpm/. He specifically reccommended Farm Policy Minute No. 12 for help inputting data. Outlaw said producers have a lot of decisions to make, including whether or not to update yields. Reallocating base acres is another important decision, as most bases were set in 1985. Another imporant thing to pay attention to is deadlines. All of the decision making means nothing if a producer misses his or her opportunity to enroll in a program under the farm bill. The deadline to reallocate bases and update yields is February 27, 2015. From November 17, 2014, to Marc