By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

VERSAILLES, Ohio — At a mid-April Farm Bill Summit in Versailles three keynote speakers talked about their areas of expertise in commodities, conservation, and crop insurance – also the three largest agricultural titles in terms of spending in the 2018 farm bill.

The 2018 bill is considered to be mostly evolutionary, not revolutionary, but there are still changes that will be important to producers and agribusinesses. There is an amazingly short list of what he would call “big changes” in crop insurance, said Keith Coble from Mississippi State University; the media are mainly talking about hemp.

“The word ‘hemp’ showed up in the conference wording 114 times including hemp insurance,” Coble, an agricultural economist, said. “Knowing the ingenuity of American farmers, we are going to have a lot of hemp.”

He found it interesting that even though the United States is in a trade war with China and dealing with tariffs, the price volatility levels that plug into revenue insurance rates are remarkably low. “I would have expected that the soybean price volatility would be at least 18 percent. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was 20 to 22 percent, but it was at 12 percent, as low as rice – and that’s a low level.”

There are five questions Coble suggested farmers ask their crop insurance agent, and the agents don’t always like that because it slows things down:

•What about enterprise units across county lines?

•May I qualify for trend-adjusted yields?

•May I qualify for APH yield exclusions?

•What is the premium for different coverage levels? What about separate coverage levels by practice?

So-called “Big Data” will have a strong effect going forward, he said. The holistic crop insurance rating is going to change dramatically, and it is going to be Big Data that causes it. Insurance is going to be identified by its geo-location.

“That’s going to allow a lot more precise nature of rating, and it is going to make the rates more accurate within county lines,” he explained.

Talking about the Conservation Title, Jonathan Coppess from the University of Illinois said conservation pressures are growing. There are consumer and food chain demands for sustainable production and sourcing. Consumers want food they know is produced sustainably.

“The pressure is on everything from the water quality issues in the Gulf of Mexico to drainage issues from nutrient soil loss, on and on,” said Coppess, director of U of I’s Gardner Agriculture Policy Program. “These pressures are not just new, but they are certainly not going away. They’re growing and are going to continue to drive much of the political policy discussion.”

Also, USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is taking applications for its Conservation Stewardship Program until May 10.

“If you’re thinking about those practices, go into (your) NRCS office to see if you can qualify,” he said. “We want to see an increase in demand from this part of the country for the program.”

Next, Patrick Westhoff from the University of Missouri's Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute talked about the Commodity Title. “If you liked the 2014 bill, you will probably like the 2018 bill because it hasn’t changed all that much,” he noted. “But there are some important changes.”

These include:

•The ability for some growers to update Price Loss Coverage (PLC) yields. This will make sense if 2013-17 yields are sufficiently above the existing program yields.

“This is not a complicated decision,” he said. “Higher is better.”

•Formula that lets reference prices increase if the market is high enough. Reference prices for most commodities are kept at current levels under most likely circumstances, Westhoff said.

“This happens occasionally, not very frequently,” he explained. “The chance for a reference price increase is not high, but it is also not zero, going forward.”

•Trend-adjusted yield (such as in crop insurance) will be used in determining Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC). This will add something to benchmark revenue. Maybe 5 bushels or so an acre of corn will be the typical bump-up, he said.

•Multiple opportunities to make new ARC/PLC elections. Producers can make a new election in 2019 for the 2019 and 2020 crop years. They can also revise those elections in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

“That’s four chances to get it right or not to get it right,” Westhoff added.

Finally, he displayed a slide showing the U.S, farm payment income projections. Net farm income dropped from a high of $120 billion in 2013 to a low of $60 billion in 2016 and 2018.

“2019 is a little better, but not much; improvement in subsequent years is also very modest,” he said.

This Summit was broadcast live in 24 states and five countries. The Ohio State University jointly hosted this event with several other agencies and businesses.