FARM BILL TOOLBOX LAUNCHED

Lindsay Mitchell

Jul 11, 2014  |  Today's News

You may recall from early in June, that the University of Illinois was among the recipients for Farm Bill education monies set aside in the Farm Bill 2014 legislation.  These funds were reserved to help farmers understand their new program options and provide analysis that would help them determine the best set of risk management tools for their farms.

The result of those funds was launched yesterday.  You can visit the new University of Illinois Farm Bill Toolbox here.

Yesterday, the U of I College of ACES reported that “On July 1, 2014, the University of Illinois as the lead university for the National Coalition for Producer Education (NCPE) entered into a cooperative agreement with the Farm Service Agency for development of web-based decision tools to help producers and farm owners with the decisions and programs in the Farm Bill. This effort will involve the development of three different tools by the Illinois-led NCPE, as well as training, education, outreach and analysis on the tools and programs: (1) a tool for the ARC/PLC program decision, including base acre reallocation, payment yield updating and SCO/STAX; (2) a tool for the new dairy Margin Protection Program and Livestock Gross Margin-Dairy insurance policy; and (3) a tool for the new Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) provisions regarding buy-up coverage."

Although the site remains somewhat under construction and in development, farmers can expect to have access to a broad range of user friendly tools on this site – from webinars to articles and even farm bill calculators that will show you the payment outcomes for your farm under a variety of circumstances.

Be sure to check out these resources as your time permits and don’t forget to sign up for important updates like these by clicking here!