Kiowa County USDA Service Center Staff

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:

• CRP CONTRACT MANAGEMENT – Light disking and grazing is available until March 15, 2027.
• SERVICE CENTER CLOSED: Thursday, November 26 Thanksgiving holiday
• ARC-PLC ELECTION and ENROLLMENT –
• 2026 crop year – September 16 through December 11, 2026
• 2027crop year – November 2, 2026, through March 15, 2027
• LIVESTOCK FORAGE PROGRAM - Kiowa County eligible for 5-month payment. Apply before March 1, 2027.
• FALL ACREAGE REPORTING DEADLINE - November 16, 2026 - All fall seeded crops will need to be reported to crop insurance and/or FSA by the date of November 16.

NON-INSURED ASSISTANCE PROGRAM or NAP

Sales closing date for native grass and alfalfa is December 1, 2026. Cost is $325.00 per producer, per crop.

VISIT Farmers.gov for more information regarding deadlines and programs available through FSA and NRCS

ARCPLC ELECTION AND ENROLLMENT

FSA offers three primary commodity safety net programs:

Price Loss Coverage (PLC)

Agricultural Risk Coverage-County (ARC-CO)

Agricultural Risk Coverage-Individual (ARC-IC).

2026 Election and Enrollment deadline is December 11, 2026.

2027 Election and Enrollment deadline is March 15, 2027.

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For PLC and ARC-CO the producers are enrolling the base acres present on the farm. Payment is not based on crop year plantings.

Price Loss Coverage (PLC)

PLC provides price protection. It does not look at your crop yields; it only looks at the national marketing year average (MYA) price for the covered commodity.

• Trigger: Payments are triggered when the national MYA price drops below the crop's designated Effective Reference Price.
• Payment Calculation: (Reference Price - MYA Price) × PLC Payment Yield × 85% of Base Acres.
• Best Suited For: Crops where you expect market prices to crater, but your regional yields remain relatively stable or high.

2026 Reference prices per bushel unless indicated otherwise:

• Wheat - $6.35
• Barley - $5.58
• Oats - $3.05
• Corn - $4.42
• Grain Sorghum - $4.67

Agricultural Risk Coverage-County (ARC-CO)

ARC-CO provides revenue protection based on county-level data. It protects against a combination of low prices, low county yields, or both.

• Trigger: Payments trigger when the actual county revenue drops below 90% of the benchmark county revenue (calculated using a 5-year Olympic average of county yields and national prices).
• Payment Calculation: The revenue shortfall (capped at 10% of the benchmark revenue) × 85% of Base Acres.
• Best Suited For: Situations where you want a safety net for localized yield disasters (like a county-wide drought) even if prices stay relatively stable.
• 2026 ARC-CO for Otero County, the chart below shows all information except for column F, G and H. That will be determined after the marketing year is completed for the specific crop.

Producers can find specific county benchmark yields from Farmers.gov website. Under Important Dates; click on the December 11, 2026, ARCPLC deadline reminder. You will be directed to the ARCPLC program page; at the bottom of that page under ‘additional resources’ click on ARC/PLC program data; click on the applicable year and sort to the state and county. The only information that is missing is the actual yield and year end price the yield times price will equal the actual county revenue. NOTE: the total county revenue for the crop must be the lessor of the maximum payment rate which is capped at 12% of the benchmark revenue.

Agricultural Risk Coverage-Individual (ARC-IC)

ARC-IC provides revenue protection based on the producer's specific farm performance across all enrolled ARC-IC farms in the state.

• Trigger: Payments trigger when the actual total revenue across all your ARC-IC farms drops below 90% of your individual benchmark revenue.
• Payment Basis: Unlike the others, ARC-IC only pays 65% of your base acres, combining all covered commodities on the farm into a single revenue calculation.
• Best Suited For: Farms with highly volatile, fluctuating yields, or specific specialty/high-risk planting records where county-level data doesn't accurately reflect your farm's reality.

One of the programs that isn’t widely used is the ARC-IC program. Because the election and enrollment is occurring late in 2026, producers have an advantage that they already know what their individual farms yielded for 2026. This is normally not the case; as the election and enrollment is done early in the calendar year. If a specific farm has historically good yields; but in 2026 suffered from drought or another cause of loss, it might be good to consider ARC-IC. There are pros and cons to the ARC-IC program; therefore, it’s important producers research the program.

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY WEBINAR

KSU held a webinar on November 3 that explained the difference to the 3 programs. The webinar is available on YouTube by searching Kansas State University Ag. Look for ARC vs PLC: Title 1 Contenders.

ONLINE CALCULATORS

The office also has a list of online calculators that can be sent to a producer’s email. The online calculators are helpful for making an informed decision.