§9097 Implementation

Summary

The Secretary must keep the farm “base acres” and payment yields for each covered commodity and for upland cotton as they were set on September 30, 2013, including the adjustments made under the listed rules and the adjustments under sections 9012 and 9013. The Secretary must also cut paperwork and simplify program rules so farmers can report information electronically or on paper. The Secretary must set fair tolerance levels for differences between common land unit maps and GPS-style data, and small differences inside those tolerances cannot be used to punish a farmer. On request, USDA must give a farmer or their agent real-time access to their land-unit and farm data through one USDA login. By September 30, 2020, the Risk Management Agency and the Farm Service Agency must use the same methods for measuring acreage, yields, farm size, property descriptions, and similar common data. Except for fraud or deliberate misrepresentation, crop insurance agents and providers are not responsible for a farmer’s program eligibility under the Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamlining Initiative (but this does not change any liability under the Federal Crop Insurance Act). Agents and providers must get needed FSA information when they ask. Agencies (FSA, RMA, NRCS, and others) must share data and use new technology, publish data and security standards so third parties can build apps, and offer farmers the option to sign price loss coverage or agriculture risk coverage contracts electronically or as multiyear contracts when practical. The Secretary must give $100,000,000 to the Farm Service Agency to carry out this chapter. If FSA shows substantial progress by September 30, 2014, an extra $10,000,000 will be made available on October 1, 2014. If full implementation is certified by September 30, 2015 and Congress committees agree in writing, another $10,000,000 will be made available on that agreement date or October 1, 2015, whichever is later. From the first $100,000,000, $3,000,000 goes to State extension services to teach farmers about program options and $3,000,000 goes to qualifying universities to build web decision tools and train producers, with the funds to be obligated quickly after February 7, 2014 and the tools put online soon after program rules begin. The Secretary must also make $15,500,000 available for FSA to carry out title I of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, and $50,000,000 to carry out the listed subtitle C (available until spent). Of that $50,000,000 at least $5,000,000 must support certain program tasks in subsection (b), $3,000,000 and $3,000,000 must fund the activities above, $9,000,000 must fund dairy production surveys and publish results every two years, and $1,000,000 must fund a specified study. When a presidential order under section 901(a) of title 2 is in effect for a crop year, the Secretary must use Commodity Credit Corporation funds as needed to restore required support, loans, or assistance under the named subtitles, except for the help in sections 9037(c) and 9038; loan repayments must include any restored loan amount but this does not cut marketing loan gains, loan deficiency payments, or forfeiture benefits. Any payment made available on or after December 20, 2018 that is not paid out within 5 years must be deobligated and returned to the Treasury, and the same 5-year rule applies to earlier FSA obligations under the listed laws, unless the Secretary delays return because of an appeal, litigation, estate settlement, or other fair reason. Finally, by January 1, 2020 and each January 1 through 2023, the Secretary must report to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on the tilled native sod acres that had benefit reductions, showing current totals and state and county shares of cropland.