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NE Iowa | I signed up for acre for one reason and that was that you can basically use ACRE to move base acres from one crop to another. I'll try and explain because it may interest some other people for this reason. Most farms in the area used to have cattle and so very few soybeans were grown but lots of alfalfa. So a typical 100 acre farm in my county will have a 40 acre corn and 20 acre oats base. Under DCP the payment for the 20 acres of oat base will be about $15 or something very small like that. Now under ACRE you would have 60 base acres you can use for whatever crop you choose. Let's say you plant that farm half to corn and half to beans (50 acres of each). If you are in ACRE by like June or July (can't remember) you need to let the FSA know how you want the base acres split up. With your 60 base acres you could do 50 acres corn and 10 beans or 50 beans and 10 corn or 30 of each. The acres you assign to a crop can't be more then the acres you planted are the only rule. With ACRE I gave up a percentage of my direct payment and have yet to receive a payment under ACRE. However, if prices were to drop and a payment were to trigger under ACRE some year my payment could be much larger because I was able to convert my essentially worthless oat base acres into corn or beans. Just another thing to think about and may apply to some other people. | |
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ACRE vs Direct
