Recently in the Kent Olson Category

Spring rains and flooded fields have delayed or prevented planting for many farmers in Minnesota. If farmers have multi-peril crop insurance and have not been able to plant by their crop's final planting date, they do have options.

For most of Minnesota, the final planting date for corn is May 31. For the northern counties it is May 25. The final planting date for soybeans in Minnesota is June 10. The late planting period extends for 25 days after the crop's final planting date.

If a farmer was unable to plant corn on or before May 31 (in most of Minnesota) because of an insurable cause of loss, the farmer may:

• Plant corn during the 25-day late planting period with the production guarantee being reduced one percent per day for each day planting is delayed after the final planting date. (But planting corn in Minnesota after June 10 is not recommended due to potential frost before harvest.)


• Plant corn after the late planting period, that is after June 25. The insurance guarantee will be 60%--the same as the insurance guarantee provided for prevented planting coverage. (Again, planting corn after June 10 is not recommended.)


• Plant soybeans on the land intended for corn before June 25 with full insurance coverage for the soybeans (but no prevented planting payment for corn).


• Not plant a crop and receive a prevented planting payment.


• Plant a cover crop and receive a prevented planting payment.


• After the late planting period ends, plant the acreage to another crop (second crop) and receive a reduced prevented planting payment for the corn.

If a farmer is unable to plant soybeans on or before June 10 in Minnesota because of an insurable loss, farmers have a similar set of options. They may:

• Plant soybeans during the 25-day late planting period with the production guarantee being reduced one percent per day for each day planting is delayed after the final planting date.


• Plant soybeans after the late planting period, that is after July 5. The insurance guarantee will be 60%--the same as the insurance guarantee provided for prevented planting coverage.


• Not plant a crop and receive a prevented planting payment.


• Plant a cover crop and receive a prevented planting payment.


• After the late planting period ends, plant the acreage to another crop (second crop) and receive a reduced prevented planting payment for the soybean.

The first step for farmers is to contact their crop insurance agent to review their policy and options before making a decision.

Farmers and their advisers can use a worksheet developed by Iowa State and adapted for Minnesota by Kent Olson to evaluate their options when prevented from planting. The worksheet also helps in the evaluation of whether to replant or not. The worksheet is available here: DelayedplantingevaluatorMinnesota.xls

USDA's Risk Management Agency's (RMA) information on final planting dates and other crop insurance information can be found at http://www.rma.usda.gov/aboutrma/fields/mn_rso/. RMA defines prevented planting as a failure to plant an insured crop with the proper equipment by the final planting date designated in the insurance policy's actuarial documents or during the late planting period, if applicable, due to an insured cause of loss that is general to the surrounding area and that prevents other producers from planting acreage with similar characteristics. More information can be found on RMA's Prevented Planting fact sheet at http://www.rma.usda.gov/fields/mn_rso/2013/2013preventedplanting.pdf.

Earlier this month, the choice between the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program and the Direct and Countercyclical Program (DCP) seemed to be tilting towards signing up for DCP in 2013. Now in late May, that tilting towards DCP has strengthened for Minnesota farmers after the rapid planting rate, the improvement in soil moisture in Minnesota, and the recent upward price movements in future prices.

The rapid planting rate during May and the soil moisture improvement have made it harder to argue that yields will vary widely from averages and trends. So, ACRE payments appear to depend more on the future prices for the crops being planted now. The recent improvement in future prices for the new crop suggest that prices will not be at levels that make the actual state revenue below the benchmark.

Using trend yields for the state yields and historical yields for individual farms, my analysis of 17 example farms across Minnesota show that the breakeven Marketing Year Average (MYA) prices for individual crops are estimated to be about $4.35 per bushel for corn, $10.90 for soybean, and $5.35 for wheat. These are not absolute, but they do give us some information for decisions. If MYA prices were to drop below these price levels (and yields were at trend levels), the ACRE program would likely make a payment larger than the required 20% cut in direct payments under ACRE. If the MYA prices end up higher than these estimated breakeven prices, the DCP program would be the best program for the farmers.

Looking at recent history, the MYA price has tracked the Chicago futures price very closely for the December contract for corn and wheat and November for soybean. In late May, the Chicago price is over $5 for corn, over $12 for soybean, and over $7 for wheat. These are well above the breakeven prices I estimated for the 17 example farms. If these prices hold and yields are close to average levels, the DCP program would be the best choice.

However, there is still uncertainty on actual state and individual farm yields. So every farmer still needs to evaluate his or her own conditions and payment limits and decide whether the ACRE or DCP program is the best option for their farm in 2013.
Farmers and their advisers can use a worksheet provided by University of Minnesota Extension (http://z.umn.edu/dkf) to help them evaluate their situation for the 2013 decision.

As noted before, the extension of the 2008 Farm Bill opens up the decision to participate in either of the safety net programs: ACRE or DCP. Farmers have until June 3, 2013 to sign up for the ACRE program and August 2, 2013 for the DCP program.

Under the earlier rules of the 2008 Farm Bill, farmers who signed up for ACRE had to remain in ACRE through 2012. The extension changes that requirement. Even if farmers signed up for ACRE before, the extension allows them to change their choice and sign up for DCP if they think that is a better choice for them in 2013.

The extension of the 2008 Farm Bill opens up the decision to participate in the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program or the Direct and Countercyclical Program (DCP). Under the earlier rules of the 2008 Farm Bill, if a farmer signed up for ACRE, they had to remain in ACRE through 2012. But the extension changes that requirement. Even if farmers signed up for ACRE before, the extension allows them to change their choice and sign up for DCP if they think that is a better choice for them in 2013. (Farmers do have the option to not sign up for either program, but this is not a sensible choice for 2013 in almost all cases.)

Farmers have until June 3, 2013, to sign up for the ACRE program and August 2, 2013, for the DCP program.

The 2013 decision to sign up for ACRE involves some uncertainty because the drought of 2012 has cast doubt on the potential yields for 2013 and thus the potential market prices. Plus, changes in the demand side for grains may have weakened the market's ability to absorb higher production at current price levels.

At this point in late April, the decision seems to tilt towards the sign up for the DCP in 2013. As we learn more about the planting season and potential production levels and price movements, this situation may change. So farmers need to pay attention to these changes and make their final choice between ACRE and DCP closer to the deadline of June 3.

Due to this uncertainty and their individual situations, every farmer needs to evaluate their own conditions and payment limits and decide whether the ACRE or DCP program is the best option for their farm in 2013. Even if they had signed up for ACRE previously, they can change their choice under the extension of the farm bill for 2013.

Farmers and their advisers can use this Excel worksheet to help them evaluate their situation for the 2013 decision.

Kent Olson, Professor and Extension Economist, Applied Economics

May 2012

Direct payments to farmers under the current farm bill have been a small, but stable and important part of farmers' income. These direct payments are cut in the draft farm bill from the Agriculture Committee of the U.S. Senate.

In the last few years, those direct payments have been essentially the only government payments made to farmers on the basis of their crop acreage. Crop prices have been higher that the levels that would create payments under the counter-cyclical and ACRE programs. Based on the Minnesota farms in the FINBIN sample at the University of Minnesota, direct payments have been a fairly stable source of income for farmers: a five-year average of $13,044 for all farms in the sample and $17,980 for crop farmers. For all farms, the highest average payment was $13,873 per farm in 2010; the lowest was $12,399 per farm in 2011.

These direct payments have been a small part of gross cash farm income: 2% over the past 5 years for all of these farms and 2.8% for crop farmers. However, direct payments have been an important part of net farm income: 8.8% for all farms and 9.8% for crop farmers. These percentages have declined slightly over the past five years except for 2009 which was a low income year for farmers. For crop farmers, direct payments as a % of net farm income ranged from a low of 7.7% in 2011 to a high of 19.1% in 2009.

Direct payments are a fixed payment in contrast to Counter Cyclical payments that vary with price levels and ACRE payments which vary with price and yield levels. The policy draft from the committee replaces these three payment systems with a new program called Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and expanded insurance subsidies. These proposals will move federal farm support into more of a risk management program with coverage levels moving with changes in yields and market prices over a moving five year time frame.

Direct Payments table.pdf

A new book on farm management is available. I just published Economics of Farm Management in a Global Setting. As it says on the back cover of the book:

Advances in technology, communication, transportation, and policy are bringing farmers closer to the global market than they ever have been. To prepare for the future in the midst of these changes, farmers need an orderly process for developing strategic and operational plans and the ability to describe them in a structured business plan. Economics of Farm Management in a Global Setting provides the right blend of tools and knowledge for undergraduate Farm Management and Agricultural Economics students. It covers new and innovative topics needed for today's and tomorrow's farm managers while keeping the fundamental concepts at the forefront. New management tools and methods include:

• Strategic and operations management
• Quality management and control
• Production contract evaluation
• Farm Transfer and Succession Planning

Praise for Economics of Farm Management in a Global Setting

"Practical examples. Hands on. Clear text. Good breadth of material.
Michael Popp, University of Arkansas

Current, complete, concise."
Wayne A. Knoblauch, Cornell University

"Three strengths [of Economics of Farm Management are]: The strong focus on strategy (four chapters) generally lacking in most other texts. ... The integration of lessons from microeconomics and particularly macroeconomics ... [and] its practical orientation by incorporating very practical issues such as operations, quality management, land use and control, contract evaluation, etc. often forgotten by others."
Erik Mathijs, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

"As a teacher of Farm Management courses, I find this text very appealing... This text is well balanced and the material covered is up-to-date. It will certainly enrich the existing literature on Farm Management... It not only covers the current topics in the subject, but it also takes into consideration the global nature and competitiveness of today's farming."
Pierre Boumtje, Southern Arkansas University

The complete list of chapters is:
1 Managing the Farm in an Integrated World Economy
2 Management
3 Business Plans
4 Lessons from Microeconomics
5 Lessons from Macroeconomics
6 Government Policies Affecting Farming around the World
7 Strategic Management: Planning
8 Strategic Management: External and Internal Analysis
9 Crafting Strategy
10 Strategy Execution and Control
11 Marketing Basics
12 Financial Statements
13 Financial Analysis
14 Financial Management
15 Enterprise Budgets: Uses and Development
16 Partial Budgets
17 Whole-Farm Planning
18 Operations Management for the Farm
19 Quality Management and Control
20 Investment Analysis
21 Land Ownership and Use
22 Risk Management
23 Production Contract Evaluation
24 Human Resource Management
25 Business Organization
26 Farm Transfer and Succession Planning
27 Farming in the Future

Given all the uncertainty of the future in the macroeconomic, politics, and the world in general, I decided to re-read "Managing in Turbulent Times," Peter Drucker's classic book from 1980. Even though Drucker was writing for a time period different in many ways from ours today, he still writes a core set of ideas that are pertinent to today's manager.

1. First task is survival. Do what needs to be done to survive today in order to be in business tomorrow.

2. Manage the fundamentals. Pay attention to the traditional measures and do what needs to be done to maintain liquidity and financial strength. Drucker adds, "Liquidity by itself is not an objective. But in turbulent times, it becomes a restraint. It becomes a survival need."

3. Manage productivity. Make the right choices to maintain and increase productivity of all resources: capital, physical assets, time, and knowledge. The productivity of each of these is managed separately with overall productivity being the ultimate goal.

4. "Tomorrow is being made today." In turbulent times, earnings made today should be used to pay the costs of staying in business tomorrow. This phrase is also the recognition that the changes that are part of today's turbulence are creating the business environment of tomorrow. So paying close attention to all the changes today will enable a manager to understand the foundations of tomorrow's market.

5. Concentrate resources on results. This means having to say, "No." Evaluate the business and the market to determine what is making money and/or establishing a base for tomorrow. If part of the business is not producing the needed results, start to let go of it. Drucker says, "Feed opportunities, starve problems."

6. Slough off yesterday. Drucker says the manager should ask, "If we weren't in this already, would we go into it knowing what we know now?" Tradition is a strong force, but if the foundations are changing, what was profitable and successful when it was started may not hold the key to success in the future. If the answer to Drucker's question is, "No," a manager should start looking at how to get out of that activity or at least asking how to stop putting additional resources into it.

7. Growth shifts to new foundations. Managers need to identify where the growth areas are that match their strengths and to start shifting resources to where the new opportunities can be found. Drucker's analogy is that business needs to distinguish between "muscle, fat, and cancer." He adds, "The rules are simple: Any growth which, within a short period of time, results in an overall increase in the total productivities of the enterprise's resources is healthy growth. It should be fed and supported. But growth that results only in volume and does not, within a fairly short period of time, produce higher overall productivities is fat. A certain amount of fat may be needed; but few businesses suffer from too little fat. Any increase in volume that does not lead to higher overall productivity should be sweated off again. Finally, any increase in volume that leads to reduced productivities, except for the shortest of start-up periods, is degenerative if not pre-cancerous. It should be eliminated by radical surgery - fast."

Even though they are 30 years old, Drucker's points are still valid today.

If they did not sign up in 2009, farmers have until June 1, 2010, to sign their farms up for the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program, the optional safety net for farmers provided in the 2008 Farm Bill. And farmers should pay close attention to this decision for 2010.

Current research results from University of Minnesota Extension tilt towards the decision to sign up for the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program in 2010. The decision in 2009 was a toss up as to whether ACRE or counter-cyclical payments (CCP) was a better bet.

My example calculations point toward ACRE payments for corn, soybean and wheat in Minnesota, but this is not certain. There are many interrelated moving parts in this decision. To predict the probability of ACRE payments in the midst of uncertainty, I estimated the potential values and distributions of yields and prices for 2010 and combined them with the ACRE program's rules in a statistical model. The results estimate potential state ACRE payment rates in Minnesota near $50 per acre for corn, $30 for soybeans, and $27 for wheat, with positive payment rates estimated to occur in more than 50 percent of the estimations. Actual payments to individual farms would depend on whether each farm had a loss under ACRE rules, the second trigger in the ACRE program. However, these are just estimates. The possibility of no payments also exists.

Farmers who did not sign up for ACRE in 2009 need to evaluate their specific conditions and payment limits and decide which program is the best option for them in 2010. (Those who signed up for ACRE in 2009 cannot revoke this decision.)

Further information for Minnesota farmers and an Excel worksheet for analyzing the choice between ACRE and CC payments in 2010 are available in the Farm Bill section at Minnesota Extension's Ag Business Management web page. Also, further information on the ACRE and other FSA programs are available at local or State FSA offices or on FSA's Web site at: www.fsa.usda.gov.

USDA announced today that the signup period for the 2010 Direct and Counter-Cyclical Program (DCP) and the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program has begun and will continue through June 1, 2010.

However, don't rush out to sign up. Let's watch how the programs unfold for the 2009 crop being harvested now. Let's see how the ACRE payments work for those signed up for ACRE.

Since the deadline is June 1, 2010, we'll have a good idea of actual planting decisions, but we won't know much about the weather for the 2010 crop. So the decision to switch from DCP to ACRE will require more analysis about potential yield variability on the farm and for the State as well as some estimates of price variability. We can't assume that the 2010 ACRE payment will be the same as the one for the 2009 crop. Stay tuned for more information about decision tools as we move into the fall and winter.

If you signed up for ACRE in 2009, you can't change back. That decision is irrevocable.

If yesterday's yield and price forecast releases from USDA hold, the potential for a positive ACRE payment rate for Minnesota has increased. This is especially true for corn and wheat. If the low part of the WASDE price forecast becomes reality, we would likely see positive State ACRE payment rates for corn, soybeans, and wheat at current yield estimates.

However, the State payment rate is only the first trigger for an ACRE payment to an individual farm. The individual farm also has to have lower revenue than that farm's benchmark revenue. If a farm is expecting better than average yields from recent years, the farm may not receive a payment even if the State has a revenue shortfall.

And if farmers sign their farms up for the 2009 crop, the farm is enrolled for all four years. If farmers expect normal yields and future prices to be below recent levels, the ACRE program could look very attractive compared to the 20% cut in direct payments. If future prices are expected to increase, the likelihood of ACRE payments decreases.

Farmers have until August 14, 2009, to elect and enroll their farms in either the ACRE program or the Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) program for their 2009 crop.

Especially due to the closeness of this decision, every farmer needs to evaluate their own conditions and payment limits and decide whether the ACRE or DCP program is the best option for their farm in 2009. Further information for Minnesota farmers and an Excel worksheet for analyzing the choice between ACRE and CC payments is available in the 2008 Farm Bill section at Minnesota Extension's Ag Business Management web page. Also, further information on the ACRE and other FSA programs are available at local or State FSA offices or on FSA's Web site at: www.fsa.usda.gov.

With recent crop price declines, farmers have become more interested in whether they should sign up for the Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) program. And they are right to be more interested. Farmers have until August 14, 2009, to elect and enroll their farms in either the ACRE program or the Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) program for their 2009 crop.

For corn and soybeans, current average price and yield projections for the 2009-10 marketing year and the 2009 crop put potential actual state revenue for corn and soybeans essentially equal to the almost final state ACRE guarantees. If the actual is equal to or more than the guarantee, the State payment rate for ACRE would be zero. However, my estimates show that it doesn't take much of a price drop to have an ACRE payment rate that would cover the required 20% in direct payments (DP).

For wheat, the forecast wheat price for 2009-10 indicates a high likelihood that the potential ACRE payment will be greater than the required 20% reduction in direct payments. Any farmer with wheat needs to give serious consideration to signing up for ACRE instead of DCP and watch which direction price forecasts move before August 14.

This decision is not an obvious choice for corn and soybeans but it is becoming clearer, especially for wheat, as we learn more about where yields and prices may be for the 2009 crop and the 2009/10 crop marketing year. Under ACRE program rules, the revenue guarantees are being set fairly high for Minnesota due to good yields and high prices in recent years. But since forecast prices for 2009/10 are also quite high and Minnesota crop conditions are good for the 2009 crop (from a statewide perspective), actual revenue in Minnesota may not be low enough to trigger an ACRE payment large enough to counter the required 20% reduction in direct payments (DP). In Minnesota, the highest chance of an ACRE payment being made is for wheat. For corn and soybeans, the choice lies in great part on whether prices for the 2009-10 year will be lower than current forecasts, not what prices are doing right now, but what we think prices will be for the entire 2009-10 marketing year.

Especially due to the closeness of this decision, every farmer needs to evaluate their own conditions and payment limits and decide whether the ACRE or DCP program is the best option for their farm in 2009. Further information for Minnesota farmers and an Excel worksheet for analyzing the choice between ACRE and CC payments is available in the 2008 Farm Bill section in the left hand menu at Ag Business Management web page. More information on the ACRE and other FSA programs are available at local or State FSA offices or on FSA's Web site at www.fsa.usda.gov.