Agricultural producers who want to participate in Farm Service Agency’s Direct and Counter Cyclical Program, Average Crop Revenue Election Program, or Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program during the 2012 crop year must submit their applications by June 1 to be eligible for the programs.
Aaron Krauter, North Dakota State Executive Director for FSA, says he can’t stress the importance of the deadline enough. “This is a deadline that program participants can’t miss,” Krauter said. “We saw some confusion in the past where people thought they had signed up, didn’t realize they had to apply each year, and missed out on the program.” Producers who choose to participate in either the revenue-based ACRE safety net or the price-based DCP safety net must apply for the program each year. All owners and operators who will share in the DCP or ACRE payments on the farm must sign the enrollment form (CCC-509) by June 1. If a producer does not get the signed form in to their local office by June 1, they will not be enrolled in the program for the current year and will not receive benefits.
Producers who choose to participate in DCP or ACRE were allowed to choose between the two programs in 2009. A producer who initially chose to remain in DCP does have the option to switch to the ACRE program when they apply for the program before the June 1 deadline. However, producers who elected to enroll their farm in ACRE cannot switch back to DCP. Additionally, if a producer has a farm that is enrolled in ACRE and buys another farm that is enrolled in DCP, the two farms cannot be combined unless the DCP farm is changed to ACRE.
The 2010 SURE program, which provides benefits for farm revenue losses, also has a June 1, 2012 deadline. Losses due to natural disasters that occurred during the 2010 crop year may be eligible for this sign up. SURE is available to eligible producers on farms in counties with Secretarial disaster declarations, including contiguous counties, that have incurred crop production or quality losses of at least 10%, or both, and includes all crops grown by a producer nationwide, except grazed crops; or any farm in which, for the crop year, the actual production on the farm because of disaster-related conditions is 50 percent or less than normal production of the farm.
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