Friday, July 31, 2009

ACRE and FSA

ACRE has been getting a lot of mention in the stuff I follow. Here's an example, at extension.org.

What bothers me, perhaps wrongly, is the degree to which a farmer's decision to participate is being determined by market prices and predictions. I know past participation in production adjustment programs also relied on such calculations. But, maybe because it's new and I don't fully understand it, this seems different. I'm not concerned about the farmers so much as the FSA offices. It seems to me when the ACRE checks go out, or don't go out, there's more potential for farmers to come back at the offices to blame them for their decision. That's always a problem, particularly when the farmer can claim misaction/misinformation, if they still can. (That provision began back in the day when ASCS would tell a farmer to destroy seeded acreage to get with his permitted acreage, or that he was okay as he was, and the info turned out to be wrong.)

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