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ST. Louis, Missouri
June 20, 2002
The
National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) has unveiled a Farm
Bill Guide and Calculator, a tool growers can use to take the
guesswork out of figuring direct payments, countercyclical
payments, marketing loan assistance and total program benefits
for producers of corn, barley, cotton, oats, rice, sorghum,
soybeans and wheat.
By using NCGA's Farm Bill Calculator, developed in cooperation
with the Center for Agriculture & Rural Development, producers
can input their county loan rates to get the big picture on
their payments.
"The calculator is a great tool for growers," said NCGA Public
Policy Action Team Chairman Ron Litterer. "It gives them the
opportunity to sit down and look at their operation. Due to the
complexities of the farm bill, growers need to be able to enter
their own data and get the information that applies directly to
them."
Litterer noted the NCGA is compiling a pocket-sized guide to the
farm bill that will include the calculator on a computer disk as
a convenient tool for association members. That guide and
calculator will be mailed to all 32,000 NCGA members later this
month.
The Farm Bill calculator can also be downloaded from
www.ncga.com in either one zip
file or in three separate files. Once downloaded, farmers can
input the specific information from their operation and find out
what benefits they will receive.
Litterer, a grower from Greene, Iowa, said not only is the
calculator a handy tool, it's easy to use. "It's not a
complicated program at all. It's laid out in a usable Excel
spreadsheet format and allows most producers to enter their data
and get results quickly. For anyone who uses computers on a
fairly regular basis, it should be a snap."
The National Corn Growers Association mission is to create and
increase opportunities for corn growers in a changing world and
to enhance corn's profitability and usage. NCGA represents more
than 32,000 members, 25 affiliated state corn grower
organizations and hundreds of thousands of growers who
contribute to state checkoff programs.
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