USDA has announced that the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 extended the authorization of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the 2008 Farm Bill) for many Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) commodity, disaster and conservation programs through 2013. Programs that were extended include: the Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payment Program (DCP), the Average Crop Revenue Election Program (ACRE) and the Milk Income Loss Contract Program (MILC). USDA’s Farm Service Agency announced the following:

•  Sign-ups for DCP and ACRE for the 2013 crops will begin on Feb. 19. The DCP sign-up period will end on Aug. 2, 2013 and the ACRE sign-up period will end on June 3, 2013.

•  The 2013 DCP and ACRE program provisions are unchanged from 2012, except that all eligible participants in 2013 may choose to enroll in either or both programs for the 2013 crop year. This means that eligible producers who were enrolled in ACRE in 2012 may elect to enroll in DCP in 2013 or may re-enroll in ACRE in 2013 (and vice versa).

All dairy producers’ MILC contracts are automatically extended to Sept. 30, 2013. Therefore, eligible producers do not need to re-enroll in MILC. Details regarding certain modifications to MILC will be released soon.