With the meeting on the Farm Bill coming up next week, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Farm Management Specialist Alexis Stevens is ready to help local farmers.

Under the 2014 Farm Bill, and the current bill introduced in 2018, there are two topics she’s specifically looking forward to talking about. Those topics are the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program. Stevens tells Raccoon Valley Radio the difference between the two programs.

“So ARC is the Agriculture Risk Coverage, and so that was new in the 2014 Farm Bill, and then again in 2018 they reauthorized that. It’s kind of a combination of where you have a yield loss and revenue loss. Then that would trigger a payment sort of similar to an insurance payment. PLC is Price Loss Coverage. So with that one, it’s based off of what the price of grain is doing, and so we’ve got really high prices right now.”

Individuals can choose either the ARC program or the PLC program when they sign up at the Farm Service Agency (FSA) Office. Stevens says that farmers can go ahead and get signed up now, and if they change their mind on which program they’d like to have coverage under, they can change that any time before March 15th. Stevens will be holding her meeting at the Guthrie County Extension and Outreach on February 2nd at 5pm, and it’s free to attend.