Brent Gloy and David Widmar write a blog called Agricultural Economic Insights and they recently did a post on “How Has your State Fared Under the 2014 Farm Bill?”. In the post, they provide data on a state-by-state basis showing the average amount of payments each state has received for ARC/PLC during 2015/16 (2014 and 2015 crop year) versus the average direct payment paid during 2010-2013.
“Fixed direct payments were by far the largest portion of farm program payments under the 2008 farm bill. These payments were made on a fixed price and yield for most commodities. For example, corn producers received $.28 per bushel on the farm’s direct payment yield on 83 to 85% of base acres. The direct payments were reduced by 20% for farms that chose to participate in the ACRE program.”
We know that a substantial majority of corn and soybean farmers elected ARC-CO under the 2014 farm bill. Wheat growers were about 58% ARC and 42% PLC. The original CBO estimates for the repeal of Direct, Counter Cyclical, and ACRE payments called for about $6 billion in program savings. In its place, the CBO expected an average of about $3.5 billion of ARC/PLC payments.
