Ag Policy
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Permanent Means Permanent
Many farmers will sell or grant a conservation easement to various organizations. These easements are designed to permanently keep certain farm land out of production due to their sensitive topsoils or other features. If the granting of the easement is structured properly, the difference between the fair market value of the land before the easement and the value […]
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Labor Department asks Judge to Overturn ‘Hot Goods’ Ruling
Updating an earlier post regarding “hot goods,” the U.S. Labor Department claims a judge committed legal error by overturning “hot goods” settlements between the agency and Oregon farmers. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the judge accepted “unsupported allegations at face value” from the farmers when he ruled the deals should be revoked. The ruling’s […]
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How Much Longer for Section 1031 Exchanges?
In the budget proposal just released by President Obama, he calls for a cap on the amount of gain that could be deferred under Section 1031. This cap would be $1 million each year indexed for inflation. The tax reform proposals released by both the Senate and the House call for major changes to like-kind […]
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When Will Productivity Start Increasing Again?
Co Bank provides loans to cooperatives and other Farm Credit Service banks across the country. They also issue a monthly Outlook and for the February issue, Lee Ohanian, an economist with UCLA was interviewed regarding the lack of growth in productivity over the last few years. In layman’s terms, productivity represents the growth in total […]
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Tax Reform – Part ?????!!!!!
Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee issued another tax reform proposal today. Since this is a mid-term election year, it has little chance of passing this year, but it is important to note possible changes that Congress is pondering. The major ones affecting farmers are as follows: For individuals, create […]
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Some Quick Thoughts on the 2012 Ag Census
The USDA released a preliminary 2012 Ag Census report last week. This report provides summarized information on the number and types of farms by state. More detailed information will be released later on in the year. Some of my quick thoughts on this preliminary release are (comparisons will be to the 2007 Ag Census): Total US […]
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Is There An Error in the Dairy Margin Protection Program
The new farm bill provides dairy farmers with a margin protection program that will pay them if the average milk price for a two month period does not exceed the average feed price. The average feed price is comprised of corn, soybean meal and alfalfa. Dairy farmers who enrolled in the program do not have […]
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Make Sure to Review Your Base Acres
One of the original proposals in the farm bill discussion was to make payments based on actual production, not base acres. Well, this did not happen, so for 2014-2018 crop years, your actual ARC or PLC payments will be made based upon your base acres. For county elected ARC or PLC provisions, this payment will […]
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ARC & PLC Are Not Crop Insurance
We had a reader ask the following question: “Paul, I have been reading your blogs about federal crop ins. Is PLC and ARC the whole program or do we still have the traditional options that we have had the last few years? If the traditional plan is still in place will we have to pick […]
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ARC Could Lock in More Revenue Than Crop Insurance
We have written several posts on Agricultural Risk Coverage over the last couple of weeks, however, the Olympic average calculations called for in ARC may yield higher income levels than crop insurance for the 2014 and 2015 crop years. ARC is calculated by taking the average revenue for either county or individual coverage. This Olympic […]