(Spirit Lake)– A reminder of an informational meeting next week pertaining to reduced payments to Dickinson county farmers through the Agriculture Risk Coverage, or ARC program.
As we reported previously, the county’s ag producers should have received a maximum payment of about $97 per acre based on regional yield data and weather challenges in 2024. They instead received only $30 per acre. Local ag officials say that’s resulted in about $6.6 million missing from the local farm economy. They add that over 98,000 acres of corn base in Dickinson county were impacted.
Scott Titterington who farms near Milford told KUOO news in a recent interview they’re still trying to determine exactly where and how the miscalculations occurred…
“It seems like the problem is in the national office. I don’t think our local personnel had anything to do with the math that goes into calculating the payments, and it seems like the state office does not, either, so it seems like it’s more of a national problem than local.”
A letter has been drafted to Iowa’s congressional delegation regarding the issue. It states that the scale of the issue “is unprecedented and threatens the solvency of many family farms”. Titterington says they’re hoping to further raise awareness over the issue at the meeting this coming Tuesday, January 6th…
“It really should be a pretty brief meeting, just general information. As far as getting a lot of questions answered, that’s probably not going to happen, but I think those are the kind of concerns we have to voice to our legislators.”
Tuesday’s meeting will begin at 10:00 am at the Dickinson County Expo Building in Spirit Lake.
