Farm bills over the past several decades have set farm policy objectives. With the passage of each new farm bill, farmers must learn how the new bill will affect them and how to best manage their business with the new policy.

The basic policy question has been whether the government’s objective is to enhance farm income or to help farmers manage their risk. The Food Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, 2008 Farm Bill, has come down clearly on the side of managing risk.
Two new programs contained in the 2008 Farm Bill, the Supplemental Revenue Assurance Program (SURE) and Average Crop Revenue Enrollment (ACRE), illustrate the emphasis.
Farmers must choose if they wish to participate in these programs. SURE is a whole crop farm operation disaster assistance program with payments tied to shortfall of total revenue.

To receive help from this program the farm must:
•Be in a declared disaster county or in a county next to a declared county or have lost 50 percent or more of production from adverse weather.
•At least one crop has to have 10 percent or more production loss from a disaster.
•Crop insurance and Non-insured Crop Assistance Program (NAP) must be purchased.

Beginning with the 2009 crop, farmers must decide to stay with the program established in the 2001 Farm Bill called the Traditional Suite of Programs, or switch to the new 2008 Farm Bill provisions, ACRE. The objective of ACRE is to help farmers manage market risk.

This is defined as U.S. price decline over a few years times the states average yield.

A common reaction is that ACRE is complicated. Remember PIK Certificates, talk about complicated. When something is new, it takes time to learn how to best manage the change.

To help you learn more about the programs, several OSU Extension County Offices and Farm Services Agency Offices are conducting meetings to help you make better decisions. Meetings will be at the Warren County Ohio Fairgrounds on March 30 at 1:30 p.m. and again at 7 p.m.

Meetings will be in Butler County at the OSU Extension Office, 1802 Princeton Road, Hamilton, Ohio, on April 2 at 1:30 p.m. and again at 7 p.m.

Please R.S.V.P. by calling the FSA Office in Warren County at 513-695-1867 or by calling Butler, Hamilton FSA at 513-887-3727.
For more information on meetings near you, call your local OSU Extension or Farm Services Agency Office.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Steve Bartels may write to him in care of this publication.