Agristability?

[Hamloc]

Just doing a quick poll, how many of you still think being enrolled in agristability is worthwhile? Yearly fee and extra accounting fees for filling out the forms seems like a waste of money with the 70% support level. Do you think the Liberals will change the program? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance:-)

[Guest]

right or wrong we got out 3 yrs ago .. accountant was sad . got 13 k once had to pay it back. I think if you take crop ins and hail ins , it's hopeless

[farmaholic]

In, against my better judgement. 70% of the gross margin OR eligible expenses(lower of either) makes it hopeless but we don't do crop insurance. Only hail insurance.

Forms are half filled out already if you're in AgInvest. What else do you need, acres and inventory and prebuys etc, not too onerous. ....

If some sort of adhoc comes along or you want in, you will have to submit the past info anyway. May be just easier to keep up rather than catch up.

[farmaholic]

Re premiums, I just look at it like I give 20-25% of my AgInvest matching deposit back...happy now Chuckchuck? (Still way behind compared to the taxes paid on this farm!) (Doesn't get any better than I have it though...13%, now I suppose you'll call that a subsidy too!)

[Richard5]

Imo, opting out is not a good decision for most operations.

In the 3 or 4 years that I received a payment from farm programs like this I always knew the estimated payment in advance.

CaseIH, you say you received something and then had to repay it, what were you supposed to get in the first place. If this isn't being done for you then how do you know.

Regardless of the debate of simplicity or too difficult to understand its a program based on gross margin. I don't think most guys understand gross margin.

If you are investing an average amount of eligible costs into the crop your margin should be in the 150-180 range. This would then mean if you don't average $300-320 on the gross side you would most likely receive a benefit.

At $320 avg gross, most crops wouldn't pay crop insurance.

At $320 avg gross a farm will have other serious issues...

[fjlip]

Been out for 3 years, those 3 would have NEVER paid out, GF 2 took away ANY chance to payout, that was their plan all along. F*ck Harper!

[farmaholic]

Benefits will be received if you fall below 70% of either your reference margin or allowable expenses, which ever is lowest.

Total allowable Income less total allowable expenses with an allowance for accrual adjustment and structural change will give you the reference margin(take the previous 5 years and leave out the highest and lowest year and average the three that are left).

It gets interesting for expenses, allowable versus non allowable. If you have high CCA or rent(i think) that is the individuals choice but dont expect those(and some others) to lower your margin.

To me it is a snapshot of one year's production and how it compares to the previous five(less one high and one low).

Where they made it even harder to collect is when they started using the lower of the allowable expenses or reference margin as the trigger for payment.

Please correct me if I am wrong with these comments.

R5... sorry to say I'm having a little trouble following you. How can you say what the margin should be if you invest "X" dollars into a crop....that depends on production and price less expenses. I'm sure it's clear in your head but I'm not picking up what you're laying down :-).

Two farms with completely different numbers could trigger a payment based on the programs formulas of course.

[farmaholic]

Agreed fjlip, I think the Gov saw the potential liability that program was accruing during the recent commodity heyday!

[stonepicker]

It's been a pretty good program, no program is perfect. For the enrolement fee it's very cheap ins.

[15444]

Been out of it for 3 or 4 years. Paid out 1st year and never again. AgInvest is good and I stayed in that. Heard that a bunch of producers got overpaid again this year and have to pay back. Have at 'er boys. Suppose I could make it pay if I cooked the books like some guys do to make it pay out, but too honest and/or lazy for that. I'd like to see it all disappear and let's level the playing field.

[makar]

Collected în 04, nothing till now, got what would be 30 an acre, all about your average, at one time i was 8000 now over 100000. Why pay a accountant, its just inventory that you tell him anyway.

[riders2010]

I think if it were to be investigated you d find friends of the party in power get payouts and others get nothing.
How the hell can broad ass, one earth and the like get tens of millions after only farming one year collect and then go broke the next year? Someone had to be pulling some strings to have the special assessors work on those files.

Our super representatives apes ass even admitted 7 days after the election that what was it. 30 or 40 percent have dropped out and call it a bullshit program. According to them you really unsure 70%of 70% which is 49% meaning of you get a payout you re likely cheating.

[iceman]

They pull the inventory from crop insurance if your in the program. You can try to cheat all you want but your books don't lie in a acrual accounting

Ice

[riders2010]

Inventory is only one part of the equation. And some goes to the neighbor and some goes to dad and some goes to the son all conveniently whe they need to collect.

There was a rumor about guys that owed big bills to input dealers all of a sudden having money somehow to put huge inputs in and collect from the program. Good for the dealer good for the farmer. All on paper.

[iceman]

Rider I hear you but, expenses must fall within the range. If someone did that and it happened to sneak through bet next year when they enter in the expense numbers it triggers a audit.

At the end of the day if you need to jerk with the numbers that much to get a large payout the chances are you have much bigger issues at hand

Ice