MILFORD — A group of Dickinson County farmers are banding together to raise awareness about payment shortages from the 2024 federal Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) program in regard to their corn crops.

Scott Titterington is a concerned Milford-based farmer looking for answers and helping inform farmers about this issue. He said some head scratching began when he reviewed what payment calculations should have been for Dickinson County.

“(We were) using the 152.9 bushels per acre that RMA (crop insurance) had for Dickinson County. Anyone can go on Iowa State’s website and find out calculations for Iowa counties for what our county payment was supposed to be.”

Titterington said he and a small group of other concerned farmers were waiting on the marketing year average price, set in October, which was the final calculation they needed.

“Once that came in, the number went from being an estimate to an actual, and that’s when the USDA changed their yield to 184 bushels per acre,” said Titterington.

Corn payments received by Dickinson County farmers were $60 an acre off, according to calculations by this group. They maintain that Dickinson County farmers received $30 an acre for their corn acres, but should have received $90 an acre.

“There were 98,000 acres of corn enrolled in the ARC program in 2024, so that is a shortfall of $6 million across the county,” said Titterington, adding that the numbers aren’t exact, but he thinks they are close.

He said there are two things farmers are guaranteed every farming year, including signing up for the farm program, and subsidized crop insurance.

“These other things we don’t have any control over — like whether they are going to do or not do them. But this is the farm program — it’s what they require, and this is what we get in return,” said Titterington.

He said the problem was drawn out by the government shutdown, with government employees furloughed and unable to help at the time it was discovered.

He said he visited with other local farmers who had also seen the projected payments, and in visiting about it, they began to investigate why the yield changed.

“They couldn’t get an answer,” said Titterington, adding that this change in calculation number was done at the federal level in Washington, D.C., emphasizing that it was not changed by local government officials.

Titterington said the issue becomes more complicated when factoring in that there is some confusion between acres that are irrigated versus non-irrigated in Dickinson County.

“There are 1,200 acres of irrigated crop land in Dickinson County, and there’s something about there being a lack of data through the RMA system (through those irrigated acres),” said Titterington.

He said since there was a lack of current yield data, officials went with yield information from two adjacent counties (Osceola to the west and Palo Alto to the east), to average in Dickinson County yields, since Dickinson County actual yields appeared to be missing.

“The problem with that average is that both Osceola and Palo Alto counties have a higher average yield than Dickinson County to begin with, and neither one of those counties experienced that spring flood followed by a fall drought and the lower yields that we experienced,” said Titterington. “Somewhere, RMA has published the 152.9 bushels per acre, and I don’t know how that doesn’t get to the USDA to use for their calculations.”

Titterington reasoned that someone from Washington, D.C. is not going to know the difference within 100 miles from Osceola County to Palo Alto County — with Dickinson County in between — the difference in yield potential in that stretch.

Titterington said it appears that soybean payments were correct.

“If yield isn’t being reported correctly for corn, then why are they being reported correctly for soybeans? We have a lot of questions we don’t have answers for,” said Titterington.

He went on to say he thinks local and state legislators are following correct procedures to address this problem, it’s just that local farmers found a flaw in the procedure.

Dickinson County concerned farmers have been on the phone addressing this issue with their local and state legislators, so he said they are all aware of it and trying to work on it.

Titterington said a meeting was scheduled for all interested Dickinson County farmers on Jan. 6 at the Dickinson County Expo Building in Spirit Lake. The purpose of the meeting, he said, was to raise awareness about this flaw in the system and what their options are — as well as encouraging them to visit with legislators at every level.

“The biggest thing we can do is provide a list of email and phone numbers, and encourage every farmer to email or call their legislators to say that it affects them, and that something needs to be done about it,” said Titterington, adding they want to provide the most up-to-date information at that meeting so farmers can have all the right tools in their hands to try to help themselves and each other.

Gov. Kim Reynolds was invited to this meeting, as was Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Congressman Randy Feenstra, Iowa Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and a host of other state and local officials. Farm Bureau lobbyists started working on the problem immediately, Titterington said, and this group of farmers is seeking out other ag-based lobbyists that might be able to make a difference.

“Humans make mistakes and we happened to find one,” said Titterington. “There should be a way to address it.”