Paul Mitchell, Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Extension State Specialist, and Director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) is accepting applications from farmers for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) direct payments. The USDA FSA has a payment calculator available: http://fsa.usda.gov/Assets/USDA-FSA-Public/usdafiles/cfap/cfap-payment-calculator-public-facing-version-1-final.xlsm. This spreadsheet also completes and prints the necessary forms based on the information entered. In this post, I explain how to complete the non-specialty crop production section (Part 2).
Step 1: Choose the Crop. Eligible non-specialty crops appear on the pulldown menu that appears when clicking in the yellow Commodity column. Common Wisconsin crops include corn, soybeans, oats, and sorghum, which are the focus of this post. A few Wisconsin farmers may grow canola, sunflowers, malting barley (under contract) or the eligible types of wheat.
Step 2: Enter Total 2019 Production. In this column enter the total bushels produced in 2019. This production should be the sum of bushels of grain and silage (and high moisture corn and snaplage) after converting them to grain equivalent bushels.
- Bushels should be converted to standard moisture levels (15.5% for corn, 14% for soybeans, oats and sorghum). Use this spreadsheet to make moisture adjustments: https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/06/WI-CFAP-Converter.xlsx. The spreadsheet can also make moisture adjustment for high moisture corn if you know the bushels and moisture level.
- Silage should be converted to grain equivalents using the FSA conversion factors after first converting silage to tons at 65% moisture. Use the same spreadsheet to make silage moisture adjustments and grain equivalents conversions if you know tons of silage: https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2020/06/WI-CFAP-Converter.xlsx.
- Several short “how-to” sheets and companion spreadsheets are available to calculate grain equivalents based on silage volumes and for snaplage and high moisture corn
- Determining Grain Equivalents for Snaplage and High Moisture Corn: https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/2020/06/03/determining-grain-equivalents-for-snaplage-and-high-moisture-corn-for-cfap/
- Determining the Tons of Silage in Conventional Upright Silos https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/2020/06/02/determining-the-tons-of-silage-in-upright-silos-for-cfap/
- Determining the Tons of Silage in Silo Bags https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/2020/06/02/determining-the-tons-of-silage-in-silo-bags-for-cfap/
- Determining the Tons of Silage in Bunker Silos https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/2020/06/02/determining-the-tons-of-silage-in-bunker-silos-for-cfap/
- Determining the Tons of Silage in Piles https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/2020/06/02/determining-the-tons-of-silage-in-piles-for-cfap/
- Document the process and assumptions you used to calculate your final bushels for each crop, such as a short written description or printed hard copies of spreadsheets with the file name and saved location.
Step 3: Enter Unsold 2019 Production on January 15, 2020. In this column enter the total unsold bushels of the crop you had on January 15, 2020. Again, this production should be the sum of bushels of grain and silage (and high moisture corn and snaplage) after converting them to grain equivalent bushels. The same tools above can be used to make moisture adjustments and to convert the various forms of silage to bushels of grain equivalents.
- A key point is that this production has to be “subject to price risk” and so cannot include bushels under various types of contracts. In brief, grain under a basis contract, basis fixed contract, no price established, delayed price, or deferred price contract is included, but grain under several other types of cash, forward and futures contracts is excluded. The full list of ineligible contract types is available here: https://www.farmers.gov/cfap/non-specialty and https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/FSA_CFAP_Non-SpecialtyCropProducers_Fact%20Sheet-v3.pdf.
- Again, document the process and assumptions you used to calculate your final unsold bushels on January 15, 2020 for each crop.