|
Ohio | I'm not saying that I agree at all with US Farm Policy and probably have similar feelings about base acres. However, it is the plan in place so you can pretty much take it or leave it.
If you read any of the FarmDoc stuff from Illinois they have had some good articles in the past on why base acres exist and why these programs are not more closely tied to actual plantings. The gist of it is that by separating actual plantings from payments it does not incentivize farms to continue to produce crops that the US already has a giant surplus of. If you knew today that you were going to break even at best or lose money on every corn acre you planted, would you plant corn or switch to another crop that would have a better chance of making money? In that same scenario if you knew you had a guaranteed USDA payment on each planted corn acre how would that affect your decision? Most farms would roll the dice and plant the corn knowing they had that payment guarantee. The carryout number would grow and then we'd be in an even worse situation next year where the process would repeat itself.
| |
|
Base acres and arc and plc mnopqrstuvwxy and z
