Farmers and FSA experienced unique 2004 year years ago
By WILLIAM J. HARMON
Executive Director
Marion County FSA
Farmers and FSA faced some unexpected events during the course of 2004, including record high crop yields and overwhelming numbers of loan deficiency payment (LDP) requests. These factors along with others combined to produce one of the more successful years in Marion County agriculture.
There are 1,860 county base acreage farms enrolled in the current Direct and Counter-cyclical farm Program (DCP) for which more than $3.6 million was disbursed to producers in guaranteed direct payments.
Conservation related program payments, including earnings under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), amounted to nearly $654,000. There were 21 new contracts accepted under the 29th CRP general sign-up bringing the total outstanding acreage in CRP to more than 17,000 acres.
Low crop prices in the fall triggered feed grain LDPs to be processed on more than 1,800 requests. $2.3 million in LDP payments were paid to county producers in 2004.
