LENA, Wis. — All agricultural producers have the opportunity to sign up for either the Agriculture Risk Coverage or the Price Loss Coverage program by March 15.

This voluntary program provides payments to farms when either revenue or crop prices are below set guarantees. The decision is made on a crop by crop basis at the county level, unless the individual option under ARC (ARC-IC) is selected.

To assist producers, a pair of educational webinars has been scheduled to provide county-specific information designed to help in this decision-making process.

The live webinar events are being held on Tuesday starting at 11 a.m. and Thursday starting at 7 p.m. Both will feature the same information.

Extension Agriculture Agent Scott Reuss will share the information and decision-making tools that are available to producers as they analyze this decision for their farms.

He will showcase the current projections for 2021 and what they mean for good ARC vs. PLC decisions for area farms. Nancy Swenty, Farm Service Agency contacct for Marinette County will be joined by other FSA staff and will discuss program logistics as well as give producers pointers regarding the sign-up process in 2021.

Following and during the topic discussion, attendees will be able to ask any questions they may have.

A demonstration of the use of available decision-assisting tools will also be conducted.

Registration is required to attend either live event. Register by sending an e-mail to Extension agriculture agent/educators Scott Reuss or Kimberly Schmidt at either scott.reuss@wisc.edu or Kimberly.schmidt@wisc.edu.

When you e-mail, include your name, county in which you farm, and the crops for which you have FSA base acres.

If you do not have webinar capacity but want to join in the events, a phone-only option is available which will allow you to hear the discussion. Call Scott Reuss at the Marinette office, 715-732-7510, to register for that option.

These free events are cooperatively sponsored by the USDA-Farm Service Agency offices of Oconto/Marinette and Shawano counties, along with the three counties’ UW-Madison, Division of Extension offices.

Dr. Paul Mitchell, Grain Crops Economist with UW-Madison/Extension, has posted recommendations on his website at https://aae.wisc.edu/pdmitchell/extension/arc-plc-signup/. You can also view videos of him discussing the same type of information that will be presented at these events.