(Spirit Lake)– A Dickinson county supervisor says he empathizes with county farmers severely impacted by a significant underpayment of ARC funds, but Steve Clark adds there’s little to nothing the county can do about it.
As we reported previously, Dickinson county farmers should have received about $97 per acre in payments, for a total countywide of $9.5 million. Instead, they received only about $30 per acre, or only $2.9 million countywide, a shortfall of more than $6 million. They speculate the error was made by the Farm Services Agency on the federal level, which calculates the payments.
Clark brought up the matter at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting…
“As a county there’s not much we can do about it except try to point them in the correct directions and stuff. It’s too bad. I hope they get that resolved but there’s nothing we can do as a county except give them some encouragement, so.”
Clark said he’s been getting bombarded with phone calls about the matter.
Farmers, crop insurance agents, ag lenders and others are urged to attend an informational meeting about the discrepancies. It’s scheduled for 10:00 am January 6th at the Dickinson County Expo Building in Spirit Lake. In the event of inclement weather it will be held January 7th at the same place and time.
