Within the last few days, the USDA has revised the allowed early harvest date for cover crops planted on Prevent Plant acres. Traditionally the date for the allowed date for producers to harvest cover crops from Prevent Plant acres was November 1. However, due to the excessively wet spring planting season, low temperatures and historic flooding, the House of Representatives recently passed the FEEDD Act, which now allows producers to harvest those same cover crops starting on September 1, 2019.
As reported by DRG News on Thursday, June 20, 2019:
“Last week, Rep. Johnson and Rep. Angie Craig, introduced the bipartisan Feed Emergency Enhancement During Disasters Act (FEEDD Act), which would create an emergency waiver authority for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to allow producers to graze, hay or chop a cover crop before November 1st in the event of a feed shortage due to excessive moisture, flood or drought. With this waiver, producers would not have to take a further discount on their crop insurance.
The FEEDD Act received immediate support from 28 bipartisan cosponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives and more than 17 national Agriculture groups. On Wednesday, Johnson spoke on the House Floor to continue his campaign to move the November 1st harvest date.”
USDA also announced that the Farm Service Agency will be extending the deadline to report prevented planting acres in select counties, and that the Natural Resources Conservation Service will hold special sign-ups for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to provide cost-share assistance in the planting of cover crops on impacted land.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota issued the following statement Thursday regarding an announcement by USDA’s Risk Management Agency to move the final haying and grazing date from November 1 to September 1 and to also allow chopping for silage, haylage and baleage under RMA’s prevented planting provisions. An earlier deadline will significantly increase the quantity and quality of feed available to livestock producers.
“Farmers are in need of options and common-sense flexibility given this year’s disaster situation, where we have millions of acres of farm and rangeland impacted. The changes announced today by USDA will go a long way toward providing farmers and livestock producers with options to address the forage situation in many parts of the country. After hearing from hundreds of farmers at a town hall meeting, I urged the Secretary to make this change, and I appreciate the willingness of Secretary Perdue to provide this relief to farmers and ranchers.”
The full excerpt of this report can be found at the following link:
Additional links regarding this welcome news:
http://southeastagnet.com/2019/06/21/usda-cover-crop-harvest-date-prevent-plant-fields/
https://www.world-grain.com/articles/12190-usda-lowers-2019-20-corn-outlook
