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Farm Service Agency issuing CRP, DCP paymentsKansas Adrian J. Polansky, state executive director of USDA's Farm Service Agency in Kansas announced Oct. 23 that FSA is issuing payments to Kansas farmers and ranchers. Conservation Reserve Program annual rental payments are issued the first of October each year. CRP participants in Kansas received $122,815,104 for 3,103,993 acres enrolled on 49,834 contracts. Across the country, participants received $1.7 billion in CRP rental payments on approximately 33 million acres. CRP is the largest public-private partnership for conservation and wildlife habitat in the United States. This voluntary program helps agricultural producers safeguard environmentally sensitive land. Producers enroll in CRP and plant long-term, resource-conserving covers to improve water quality, control soil erosion and enhance habitats for waterfowl and wildlife. In return, USDA provides producers with annual rental and cost-share payments on 10 to 15 year contracts. Final Direct Payments under the 2009 Direct and Counter-Cyclical Program are currently being issued. Approximately $308.8 million will be issued, with producers receiving an advance payment of 22 percent earlier in the year. Payment Statements will be mailed from the Kansas City Accounting Office for the entire country and not the local FSA county office. Therefore, producers may receive their electronic payment in their bank account before they receive their Payment Statement in the mail. Producers should be aware that a new web-based payment system is being used for all FSA payments. --Because of a glitch found in the new web-based payment system, some CRP assignments were not applied to producer payments. Assignment of payments provided by lenders are a service of FSA, but the financial obligation is between the producer and their financial institution. Producers with assignments that received their payment instead of it going to their lender shall contact their financial institution to make appropriate payment arrangements. --The DCP Advance Direct Payments equal to 22 percent of the total earned were issued last spring on the old payment system. Because of that, when the DCP Final Direct Payments were issued, there was no way for the new web-based payment system to know that 22 percent of the total payment was already issued. Therefore, all the Advance Direct Payments were set up as receivables on the new payment system so they would be subtracted from the Total Direct Payment calculated on the new payment system. However, if there were multiple receivables for different farms and counties they were totaled to one amount and subtracted from the first Direct Payment issued for the producer no matter what farm or what county. Producers should review all their Payment Statements for all farms in all counties to determine if the Total Final Direct Payments received on all farms in all counties is the Total Direct Payments less the Total Advance Direct Payments. This is an example: Producer Jones Farm 100 Clay Co. Farm 200 Riley Co. Total DCP Direct Payment (100 percent) $2,101 to be earned $1,540 to be earned Advance Direct Payment (22 percent) $462 paid in April $339 paid in April (set-up as receivables in Oct) Final Direct Payment (78 percent) $1,639 paid in Oct $1,201 paid in Oct. Summary: Producer Jones should get Final Direct Payments (78 percent) for a total of $2,840 (all counties/all farms). The Payment Statement will show $2,101 under 'Program Payment Detail for This Payment' for Farm 100--but the Direct Payment for Farm 100 was processed first in the new system so the total receivables (advance payments) of $801 (all counties/all farms) was subtracted from the $2,101 to leave an amount to Producer Jones for $1,300 on Farm 100. When the $1,540 payment was processed for Farm 200, because all the receivables (advance payments) were already subtracted from Farm 100, then the total $1,540 was issued. Therefore, in October Producer Jones was paid $1,300 and $1,540 for a total of $2,840, which is the total he should have received in Final Direct Payments for all farms in all counties.
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