The Farm Service Agency is estimating 2019 prevent plant acreage at a record 19.6 million acres. That compares to the previous record of just under 11 million acres in 2011. South Dakota leads the nation with nearly 4 million acres of PP. Illinois and Ohio each had about 1.5 million acres reported as prevented plant. Minnesota has nearly 1.2 million; Indiana has 943,000 acres and North Dakota has 319,000 acres in PP.
Farmers should start receiving the first round of Market Facilitation Program payments very soon. According to USDA Farm Service Agency Administrator Richard Fordyce, the payment process began Wednesday for farmers with approved applications. “Over 200,000 applications have been received since sign up began on July 29,” says Fordyce.
Farmers should expect to see up to $14.5 billion in payments. The first tranche covers 50 percent of that amount. The second and third payments of 25 percent each will depend on conditions at the time. “We’ll look at if there has been movement in trade negotiations in late fall. If not, then we’ll look at it again in January.” The MFP 2.0 application deadline is December 6.
USDA’s Farm Service Agency released more information on prevent plant acres for 2019. U.S. farmers reported 11.2 million prevent plant acres of corn, 4.3 million acres of soybeans and 2.2 million acres for wheat. That makes for a grand total of more than 19 million PP acres for 2019, the most acres reported since FSA started releasing the report. In Minnesota, there are currently 1.1 million acres enrolled in prevent plant. North Dakota has over 830,00 acres enrolled, and South Dakota has 3.8 million acres. Updated information will be available each month through January 2020.
