WASHINGTON, July 20, 2016 - Just in case.
That’s the philosophy many local USDA Farm Service Agency
offices are taking with wheat producers and paperwork for Loan Deficiency
Payments.
South Dakota State FSA Executive Director Craig Schaunaman
told Agri-Pulse that reports of
paperwork being distributed to producers are a little overblown, but he said
LDPs are being discussed with wheat growers in the state. He said that if a
producer is in the local FSA office for another reason, FSA employees might
have them fill out the form
to kick-start their participation in the program, but the documents aren’t
being shipped out.
The program provides funding for harvest-time drops in
prices to allow producers to store and market their grain. According to an FSA
fact sheet, the program covers wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland
cotton, extra-long staple cotton, long grain rice, medium grain rice, soybeans,
other oilseeds (including sunflower seed, rapeseed, canola, safflower,
flaxseed, mustard seed, crambe and sesame seed), dry peas, lentils, small
chickpeas, large chickpeas, graded and nongraded wool, mohair, unshorn pelts,
honey and peanuts. Currently, hard red winter wheat is the commodity closest to
support thresholds.
The program is triggered on a county-by-county basis when
commodity prices dip to certain levels. It’s been in existence for some time,
but hasn’t been used in several years, the National Association of Wheat
Growers said in their Weekly
Update last week. NAWG is encouraging its members to fill out the paperwork
to establish the “beneficial interest” needed to receive LDPs.
In the last year, hard red winter wheat prices have
plummeted. The September 2016 Kansas City HRW contract has lost more than $2 per
bushel in value since June 2015, sinking to about $4.14 on Tuesday. While there
can be a difference between trading prices and what a producer can receive at
the elevator, the Posted County Price that would trigger LDPs for Ford County
Kansas, which typically grows about 179,000 acres of wheat every year,
currently sits at $4.39.
#30
For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com
