Effort began in 2015 in a handful of areas before this year’s nationwide rollout
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Farmers and ranchers filing crop acreage reports with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and participating insurance providers approved by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) now can provide the common information from their acreage reports at one office and the information will be electronically shared with the other location, according to USDA, under the Acreage Crop Reporting Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI). The ACRSI effort includes participating private crop insurance agents and insurance companies, all working to streamline the information collected from farmers and ranchers who participate in USDA programs. “If you file your report at one location, the data that’s important to both FSA and RMA will be securely and electronically shared with the other location,” said FSA Administrator Val Dolcini. “This will avoid redundant and duplicative reporting, and we expect this to save farmers and ranchers time.” More than 93% of all annual reported acres to FSA and RMA now are eligible for the common data reporting, and USDA is exploring adding more crops. Producers must still visit both locations to validate and sign acreage reports, complete maps or provide program-specific information. The common data from the first-filed acreage report will now be available to pre-populate and accelerate completion of the second report. Plans are underway at USDA to continue building upon the framework with additional efficiencies at a future date. ACRSI was deployed in various pilots beginning in the spring of 2015 with 30 counties in 2 states. The pilot continued in the fall of 2015 with all counties in 15 States. USDA utilized the experience in those pilot efforts to develop the program rolled out May 31. What crops are eligible? The following 13 crops are eligible, according to USDA: Alfalfa, corn, cotton, CRP (Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), fallow, grass, oats, peanuts, rice, rye, sorghum, soybeans and wheat. Further, not all data for 2016 acreage reporting will be shared via ACRSI as FSA and RMA continue to work on aligning additional data. The data shared at this stage will be planting period, planting pattern, reporting unit, crop status, supplemental crop status and concurrent planting. FSA also reminded producers they can now access their FSA farm information from the convenience of their home computer via a self-service portal called FSAFarm . That provides farmers with online access to securely view, print or export their personal farm data.
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NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws. | ||
