Updates on the status of integration of external data for the 2024 crop year will be announced in this section as these integrations occur.
Update 1/23/2024 The value for the title sequestration rate for 2024 has been determined to be 5.7%. Existing 2024 farms were updated to use this value, and it has been made the default value for new 2024 farms.
Update 1/8/2024 2024 Benchmark prices, yields, and revenue as well as effective reference prices were released by the USDA. This information has now been imported into IFBT. Roughly half of the expected university budgets have been published, processed and integrated into the application.
Update 12/31/2023 2024 farm years can be created tomorrow (1/1/2024) since the application has now been updated with the 2024 RMA actuarial data. Title estimates will be based partly on 2023 data, which will be replaced with 2024 data as soon as the USDA releases it.
Update 11/26/2023 The RMA has now released the actuarial data for 2024 spring and fall crops, and we have imported the relevant information into a test database for crop insurance premium validation and other testing.
Update 11/26/2023 Futures prices for 2024 contracts are now being collected.
Update 11/26/2023 Preliminary cost budgets for 2024 have been computed. Some of these are based on 2024 university budgets, while others were produced by applying formulaic adjustments to the corresponding 2023 budgets. This makes it possible to have a full set of reasonably good budgets available by January 1, 2024. Updated budget versions will be released shortly after their university publication date, and users will be notified by email if updated budgets are available to replace budgets they have selected.
To produce accurate estimates for 33 U.S. states, the Integrated Farm Budget Tool relies on several outside data sources
Before we can compute estimates of crop insurance premiums and indemnities for 2024 crop year spring-planted crops, we need the actuarial data from the USDA Risk Management Agency, released in late November, 2023. With this, we can compute premium and indemnity estimates using price volatility factors from 2023 and an estimate of the final projected price as placeholders for the price volatility factors and projected price values which are released by the RMA at the end of each price discovery period. There are different price discovery periods for different states and counties, with the earliest period beginning December 15, 2023 and ending January 15, 2024.
During the projected price discovery period, the projected price is estimated as a simple average of the relevant future prices for that period. Before the projected price discovery period, the projected price is estimated simply by the current futures price.
To compute ARC-CO and PLC Title estimates for 2024, we need the 2024 Effective Reference Price, National Loan Rate, and the table of Benchmark Revenue Values, released by the USDA in early January, 2024. We will use 2023 values as placeholders for these for the period from January 1, 2024 to the date of the USDA release. The only other external data set required to compute title is the MYA price for each crop. Our application generates estimates of this price using a combination of futures prices and WASDE Projected Average Farm Prices. The WASDE reports for the 2024 crop year will be released monthly beginning around May 10, 2024.
We begin to collect future prices corresponding to 2024 crops around December 1, 2023. This makes it possible to compute RMA projected price estimates for spring-planted crops in counties where the discovery period begins in mid December.
We gather budget cost and yield information from various respected public sources and process them into a consistent format. 2024 University budget data releases began in November, 2023, with more releases occurring at various times through March, 2024. As budgets are collected and processed, they will be imported into the application to be available for users.
In order to provide users with a 'complete' set of budgets on January 1, 2024, we are releasing some 2024 budgets obtained by applying formulaic adjustments to the corresponding 2023 budgets. We recommend selecting budgets for your crops right away so you can generate a Detailed budget and Sensitivity tables, then switching them out later as University-published budgets become available. Users who have budgets for which a new version has become available will be notified by email.
In general, it's not a bad idea to create your farm year as early as January 1, even if the discovery period for your county's spring-planted crops doesn't begin until mid-February. This way, you'll be able to get practice working with the tool before the stressfull decision period begins. As the various 2024 data sources are integrated, your budget and sensitivity analyses for 2024 will become more accurate.