In a Christmas Eve move, USDA's Farm Service Agency announced that growers could sign up for disaster payments on 2008-crop losses starting Jan. 4. Yes, Virginia, you may have doubted that USDA would ever pay you on production or quality losses tallied over a year ago, but the cash could be worth the wait for some Midwest flood victims, experts say.

If your 2008 total farm revenue meets the threshold for losses, you could be entitled to aid. It's worth up to $50 to $100 per acre benefits for much of Iowa and all but a few counties in Illinois, according to Kansas State University economist Art Barnaby. Both states were hard hit by excessive spring floods during the 2008 season and some growers suffered severe yield losses.

The new disaster program --called SUpplemental REvenue Assistance program (SURE) under the 2008 farm law--is a permanent disaster program that is directly tied to the level of crop insurance purchased. What's different is that instead of covering losses on individual crops, SURE triggers only when your whole farm income tumbles below a threshold. That trigger includes revenue from all crops in all counties and crosses state lines.(Pasture, forage and specialty crops also needed to be protected with insurance or NAP policies to guarantee your whole farm eligibility.)

In general, the better your crop insurance coverage, the better your disaster aid under the new law. For example, those farmers who select CAT coverage will have their SURE coverage based on 50 percent coverage at 55 percent of the price. However, farmers insuring at the 75 percent level will also have their 'free' SURE disaster aid based on 75 percent coverage at 100 percent of the price election, Barnaby had explained in a 2008 fact sheet.

All farmers in a county receiving a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Disaster Declaration and contiguous counties are eligible for SURE benefits. In non-declared counties farmers must have at least a 50-percent yield loss caused by weather.

The Catch-22 is that the SURE revenue guarantee is based on a complex calculation of your whole farm revenue. So perhaps a 10 percent yield loss on one crop won't cut it for a claim. Growers with very diverse cropping mixes will be much less likely to collect SURE payments than monoculture wheat growers or those in corn-soybean rotations, Barnaby says. Cotton growers also may find it harder to collect, since Counter Cyclical Payments and marketing loan gains are counted in the income. But in Midwest states where checks could be worth $50 per acre and up, he says, "I guess it's worth doing the paperwork."

Note: When you read the 78 pages of text describing SURE rules, you will understand why it took USDA 18 months to forge the regulations and county software. Some insiders consider this piece of the 2008 Farm Bill the most complex administrative task for USDA to manage yet. For a copy of the SURE regulations which will be printed in the Federal Register on Dec. 28, go to http://www.federalregister.gov/…

For a more basic explanation of the SURE program, see Barnaby's analysis at http://www.agmanager.info/…

See also DTN Farm Policy Editor Chris Clayton's Dec. 23 blog on this topic.

Let us know about your SURE experiences once you visit your FSA offices.

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