HANCOCK COUNTY — An agriculture economist projects a nearly 20 percent revenue drop for Indiana corn and soybean crops this year.
Purdue University professor Chris Hurt attributes the decline to persistent spring rain delaying planting, along with the country’s trade fight with China, adding the dual factors could reduce the crops’ revenue by $1.3 billion from last year’s $6.8 billion.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month reported that American producers were unable to plant crops on more than 19.4 million acres in 2019. That’s the most since the USDA’s Farm Service Agency started releasing the report in 2007 and almost 17.5 million acres more than what was reported at this time last year.
More than 73 percent of the lost acreage this year was in 12 Midwestern states, which experienced an unseasonably rainy spring.
Hancock County farmers were no exception. Jon Sparks, who farms corn and soybeans in the county, said he wasn’t able to plant about 20 percent of his acreage this year.
Kyle Fellerman, also a Hancock County corn and soybean farmer, said that he, his brother and another fellow farmer planted a little more than 300 acres of corn and about 900 acres of soybeans among the three of them. That left about 160 to 170 acres that were just too wet for the corn and beans, he continued.
Assistance is still available. Enrollment for the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program continues through Dec. 6 at Farm Service Agency offices, according to the USDA. The program makes up to $14.5 billion available to farmers impacted by foreign trade disputes, like China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. It’s available to farmers of certain non-specialty and specialty crops along with dairy and hog producers.
How much a farmer gets from the tariff relief program is based on their county’s payment rate multiplied by the farmer’s total planting of program-eligible crops in 2019. Payment-eligible plantings cannot exceed total 2018 plantings.
Hancock County’s rate is $70 per acre. That places it in the lower part of the top half of rates among Indiana’s 92 counties. Tipton County tops the list at $80 an acre, while Starke County is the lowest at $44 an acre.
Sparks, who also represents Hancock County and seven others on the Indiana Farm Bureau Board of Directors, said the program is beneficial but not a long-term solution.
“It’s a substantial amount of money, but that being said, I think most of us would probably rather see a resolution to the trade dispute and get that market back than have to continue to get these payments,” he said.
Fellerman said he has yet to sign up for the Market Facilitation Program, but he intends to.
“That’s going to help,” he said.
According to the USDA, the 2019 Market Facilitation Program has received more than 200 signed applications from Hancock County as of Aug. 15. The Farm Service Agency will start making the first payments this month. The first payout will be half of the calculated gross payment.
In 2018, the Farm Service Agency received 458 Market Facilitation Program applications from Hancock County totaling more than $9 million in payments, according to the USDA.
Sparks also said he’s getting relief from insurance for losses from crops he was unable to plant. While insurance is helpful, it doesn’t make farmers whole, he said, adding it doesn’t cover all of the indirect costs involved in a farming operation like equipment maintenance and debt service.
Fellerman said he will use insurance as well for ground he wasn’t able to put corn and soybeans in. To maintain the soil on that land, he planted a cover crop of sunflowers.
Cover crops prevent soil erosion, protect water quality and boost soil health, according to the USDA.
The USDA reports that farmers planted more than 2.7 million acres of cover crops so far in 2019, compared to 2.14 million acres at this time last year and 1.88 million at this time in 2017.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
