Hoeven Calls on FSA Administrator to Use State Yield Estimates for ARC Program

Press Release

Senator John Hoeven, who serves on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, today called on Farm Service Administrator Val Dolcini to use yield estimates submitted to them by the North Dakota state Farm Service Agency (FSA) office to determine county Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) payments in counties for which there was no National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) data. Under USDA's current method of calculating payments, there was no payment at all for corn farmers in LaMoure and Logan who signed up for the county ARC program. Meanwhile, corn farmers in Ransom and Steele counties received lower payments than they should have because FSA did not use NASS yields from comparable counties to calculate their payments.

"Our local estimates for these counties are more in line with actual production and are based on National Agriculture Statistics Service data in similarly productive counties," Hoeven said. "There is a state FSA committee made up of producers with firsthand knowledge of local growing conditions. The USDA needs to use this valuable tool to assign county average yields that make sense in the real world."

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