The American Soybean Association (ASA) welcomed legislation introduced this week by Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), which supports and strengthens the county Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC-CO) program.
“ARC-CO is of great importance to soy growers, who signed up over 90 percent of soybean acres in the program,” said ASA President and Roseville, Illinois grower Ron Moore. “In hard economic times, finding the best way to provide support against declines in farm revenue is on every grower’s mind.”
ASA, along with eight other agriculture groups, joined a letter to Sens. Heitkamp and Ernst applauding the ARC-CO Improvement Act and highlighting its three provisions which will benefit farmers.
The proposed legislation directs USDA to use more widely-available data from the Risk Management Agency as the first choice in yield calculations, calculates safety net payments based on the county where a farm’s is physically located, and provides the FSA state committee discretion to adjust yield data estimates to help reduce variations in yields and payments between neighboring counties.
