Logan County E-NEWS

Thursday, February 10, 2011                          Issue# 2 -11

Logan County Farm Service Agency                Phone: (217) 735-5508 Ext. 2

1650 5th St                                                               Fax      : (217) 732-9916

Lincoln, IL    62656                                               Hours: M-F, 8:00 am to 4:30 PM

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News & Information

Our goal is to provide as much information to our farmers, ranchers, landowners, agribusinesses, non-farm orientated citizens, students, and future email subscribers in the quickest, cheapest, and most efficient way.  Issuing press releases and regular newsletters fulfill our minimal requirements in publicizing information, but as we have learned over the years, it's not enough. The Logan County E-News will be published periodically and used solely to compliment the other avenues of our information dissemination needs.  Subscription is free and the advice is still cheap.  We do not discriminate.  If you know someone that wants to subscribe, share this E-News with them.  If you know someone is not getting their E-News, they should contact our office or check with their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Email provider and flag the Logan County E-News as "non-spam" or "acceptable".  Every time we issue E-News publications, we receive several returned messages due to the security filters your ISP uses.

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Topics Covered:

 

·         2011 Logan County FSA Committee

·         New ACRE fact sheet

·         Logan County Soil & Water Conservation District Annual Meeting

·         CRP General Sign Up Announced

 

FSA Logan County Committee for 2011

Pictured above is your 2011 Logan County FSA Committee.  From left to right:  Vice-Chair - Rod Conklen, Advisor - Dorothy Gleason, member - Edwin Dahmm, and Chairman – John Poffenbarger.  Rod was re-elected to his third and final term.  The COC schedules to meet every 2^nd Wednesday at 9:30am each month.  Meeting times are subject to change.

 

 

USDA releases a new ACRE fact sheet for 2011

ACRE Fact Sheet

 

Contracts are ready for you to sign if you haven’t already!  Stop in the office to fill out your 2011 DCP/ACRE contracts and receive a 22% advanced payment.

 

 

Logan County Soil & Water Conservation District Meeting

            After enduring a foot of snow, the Logan County Soil and Water Conservation District was able to hold their annual meeting at the American Legion on February 3^rd, 2011.  The host of Illinois Stories of WSEC Public Broadcasting Station, Mark McDonald (pictured below), gave a presentation highlighting the historic places in Logan County.  A short business meeting was conducted which included the re-election of two board members, Cheryl Baker and Dean Sasse.   A delicious smorgasbord dinner was enjoyed by the many Logan County producers, agribusiness professionals and FFA chapters in attendance.  A big thank you goes out to all the sponsors and the Logan County Board for their support.

 

General CRP Signup Announced

MARCH 14, 2011 and continues through April 15, 2011

It was announced in late January that the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will be holding a general signup period from March 14, 2011 through April 15, 2011.  This is the second consecutive year that USDA has offered a general CRP signup.  CRP is the largest private land voluntary conservation program that helps farmers, ranchers and other agricultural producers use their environmentally sensitive land for conservation benefits.  Producers enrolling in CRP plant long-term, resource-conserving covers.  In return, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) provides participants rental payments, cost-share and technical assistance.

Eligible acreage includes cropland that has been cropped or is considered to be cropped for four of the six years, 2002-2007.  To be eligible the acreage must also meet at least one of the following: (1) be located within a conservation priority area; (2) have an average Erodibility Index (EI) of eight or greater, which means it is highly erodible; or (3) land that has been in CRP, but the contract is expiring this fall.

FSA will select the highest ranked offers that provide significant environmental benefits relative to cost by using an Environmental Benefits Index (EBI) based on six factors.  All offers will be evaluated competitively.  After the end of sign-up, offers will be ranked and an EBI cutoff score selected.  During May, FSA expects to notify producers about offers that are accepted or rejected.

The EBI factors are: (1) wildlife habitat cover benefits that encourage covers and habitats on contract acreage that will be most beneficial to wildlife; (2) water quality benefits from reduced erosion, runoff and leaching; (3) on-farm benefits of reduced erosion; (4) enduring benefits; (5) air quality benefits from reduced wind erosion; and (6) cost.

There are a few changes to the EBI since the last general signup in 2010, practice CP42, Pollinator Habitat, has been added as an available practice.  Offers will receive 50 points for this new CP42 practice.

Prior to  submitting an offer producers should be prepared to identify specific acreage they wish to offer and if the acreage is owned through undivided interests of more than the operator of the land, then all owners must agree to enroll the land.

CRP contracts are scheduled to become effective on October 1, 2011.  CRP participants may harvest this year’s crops even when normal harvest occurs after the contract effective date of October 1, 2011.  The first year’s payment is not affected by the harvest date.

Approximately 31.4 million acres are currently enrolled in CRP; however, CRP contracts amounting to about 4.4 million acres will expire on September 30, 2011.  The statutory maximum number of acres that can be enrolled in the program at any one time is 32 million acres.

CRP annual payments are made in arrears, so participants with an effective contract date of October 1, 2011, are scheduled to receive their first annual rental payment after October 21, 2012.  For more information, please contact the Logan County Office at 217-735-5508.

 

(Title picture: Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of these or at least for your neighbor to have one last week?)  If you would like to share a picture please email it to me: john.peters@il.usda.gov)

 

 

 

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Respectfully,

John Peters

John.Peters@il.usda.gov