 Okay. Well, welcome everybody. It looks like last count we've got about 580 people online here so that's very good turnout. Welcome to the Quality Loss Adjustment Program webinar. My name is Ron Haugen and I'm a Farm Management Specialist with the NDSU Extension Service and we work together with the North Dakota State FSA office to do these webinars and associate with NDSU is Miranda Mehm. She helps us out with our webinars and also with FSA we deal with Lindsay Abercroft. She's the communications specialist there and presenting today will be Lori Heinrich and she's the expert on this Quality Loss Adjustment Program. She's got a lot of information to give you and she's going to try and she's going to try answer questions too as afterwards and she's got a lot of information and we're getting a lot of questions too. This is a new program and she'll explain that all to you. We would ask that you would use the Q&A for asking questions and we don't know if we can get to all the questions but we'll try. Miranda and I will kind of summarize questions if they're duplicates and we'll try to get them. It sounds like we have a hard stop at 12.30 that we need to finish up so we'll just kind of play it by ear there and see how things go and we do have a couple polling questions too that we would have you answer at the end. So with that if there's not anything else that I had forgotten we will turn it over to to Laura. Thank you Ron and we really appreciate NDSU assisting us in getting information out on the Quality Loss Adjustment Program. So this PowerPoint will be available. Miranda will put it up on the NDSU website so you guys will have the recording plus this PowerPoint to go back and review as we go through the program. As Ron said I am Laura Heinrich. I work for the North Dakota Farm Service Agency in Fargo. I'm a FAR program director and my program division handles ARC PLC disaster programs, non-insured assistance programs, and farm records. So today we're going to talk about what the Quality Loss Adjustment Program is, who's eligible to apply and how to apply, and what the eligible crops are for forage use or non-forage use. Authority for this program is included under the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019 as it was amended by the Further Consolidation Appropriations Act of 2020. Regulations for the program can be found in 7 CFR part 760 subpart R. The goal of the program is to provide assistance for crop quality losses that were a consequence of hurricanes, excessive moisture, floods, qualifying drought, tornadoes, typhoons, volcanic activity, snow storms, or wildfires occurring in calendar years 2018 and 2019. So this program was part of what we call WIPPLUS. Many of you have probably applied for that program already. This is a separate program that's tied to those same funding bills and to those same disaster events. The signup deadline for this program is March 5th, so that's quickly approaching. So if you have not contacted your county offices to apply, we encourage you to do so. Eligible crops include crops for which federal crop insurance is available, or crops eligible for coverage in the Non-Insured Assistance Program or NAP. That's a program we run here at FSA, but we're all under the NAP program. We're excluding value loss crops, honey, and maple sap, so those are not eligible under the Quality Loss Adjustment Program. Eligible crops must suffer a quality loss due to a qualifying disaster event. They must have also incurred a 5% or greater quality discount due to the qualifying disaster event. If that crop is a forage crop, they'd have to incur a nutrient loss. These crops may have been sold, fed on the farm to livestock, or may be in storage at the time of application. Ineligible crops include crops not grown commercially, crops intended for grazing, crops not intended for harvest, subsequent crops that do not meet double cropping history or provisions. In North Dakota, we don't have double cropping provisions, so subsequent crops are not eligible in North Dakota, and volunteered crops are also not eligible. In addition, ineligible crops include prevent planting crops, first-year seeding of forage crops, crops that were destroyed other than by an eligible cause of loss, and immature group crops. We mentioned that qualifying disaster event in the slides before. This slide lists all the different qualifying disaster events. Drought, as long as it's in a D3 or D4 level, and we'll cover that in the next slide, excessive moisture, flooding, hurricane, snowstorm, tornado, and then typhoon, volcanic activity, and wildfire, and then also the additional related conditions tied to those qualifying disaster events. Counties that are eligible would be D3 and D4 extreme drought designations, presidential emergency disaster-declared counties, or secretarial disaster designation counties in 2018 and 2019. For listing of those eligible counties, you can go to farmers.gov slash quality-loss. If your county is not listed there, you still may be eligible. The county committee will require you to provide evidence that your quality loss is due to one of those qualifying disaster events. So they'll request that you provide additional documentation, whether that may be news articles, weather data, something that shows that that qualifying disaster event did occur in your county if your county was not designated as a presidential or secretarial disaster designation. So there's certain causes of loss that are not eligible. Losses that are not due to one of those qualifying disaster events are not eligible. Losses that occur after harvest or occurred in storage are not eligible. Any losses due to insect infestation, drifting herbicide, or failure to follow good farming practices are also not eligible. So to go through an example, we have a producer who suffered a quality loss on 10,000 bushels of corn for grain due to excessive moisture. The grain suffered additional quality losses prior to harvest from a subsequent hailstorm. In this scenario, all 10,000 bushels are eligible. So even though that hailstorm is not a qualifying disaster event, because the corn did experience a qualifying disaster event of excessive moisture and then subsequently that same acreage or same crop incurred a loss on a hailstorm, we can look at all of those quality losses together when we determine payment. In this example, the producer suffered a quality loss on 10,000 bushels of corn for grain. Only 1,000 bushels were affected by a qualifying disaster event of excessive moisture. The remaining 9,000 bushels only suffered a loss for hail. Only the 1,000 bushels affected by the qualifying disaster event of excessive moisture would be eligible for the quality loss adjustment program. So in this scenario, that 9,000 bushels came from a separate area that was not affected by excessive moisture. So that 9,000 bushels came from acreage that was only affected by hail. That's why that 9,000 bushels is not eligible for the quality loss assistance program. An eligible producer for QLA is a U.S. citizen or resident alien. A partnership consisting solely of citizens of the United States or resident aliens. Corporations, LLCs, or other organizational structure organized under state law consisting solely of citizens of the U.S. or resident aliens. An eligible producer is also defined as a person or legal entity that is entitled to an ownership share or is at risk in the crop production and marketing associated with the agricultural production of crops on the farm. Applicants must be able to show with verifiable evidence that they have a valid ownership share and risk in the crop produced and that they have control of the crop acreage on which the commodity was grown at the time of the disaster. Producers must also meet our adjusted gross income provisions. A person or legal entity is ineligible for QLA program benefits if their adjusted gross income exceeds $900,000 unless at least 75% of their adjusted gross income is derived from farming ranching or forestry activities. There's $125,000 payment limitation for quality loss adjustment. The limitation applies to each of the program years applied for 2018 and or 2019. This is a separate payment limitation than WIP plus. So if a producer received $125,000 under WIP plus they'd also be eligible for $125,000 under QLA. There is a linkage requirement for quality loss adjustment program as a condition for applying for benefits. Producers are required to purchase crop insurance or obtain NAP coverage on the crop for the 2022 and 2023 crop years. The coverage must be purchased at 60, 100 level or equivalent and linkage applies to all crops receiving a QLA payment. Producers who agree to obtain crop insurance or NAP coverage for a crop in accordance with the requirements for WIP plus are also considered to admit the requirements to purchase crop insurance or obtain NAP coverage for the quality loss assistance program. In exception to that 2022, 2023 requirement would be if a producer obtained or received a payment for 2019 QLA and they purchased crop insurance in 2021 and 2022. They can request an exception to utilize that 2021 and 2022 crop insurance purchase to meet linkage. The forms that apply to QLA are the FSA 898, which is the QLA program application. The 895, which is the crop insurance coverage agreement form, so that's that linkage requirement. The 899, which is the historical nutritional value weighted average worksheet, which is used for forage crops. You also need to have a CCC902 on file, which is the farm operating plan for payment eligibility. The 941, which is your adjusted gross income certification. 942, if you need to certify that 75% of your income comes from farming and ranching. And 81026, which is the form that we have you certify that you're in compliance with highly erodible and wetland determinations. An acreage report must be on file with the farm service agency. And then also, if you haven't worked with our agency before we'd have you complete an AD 2106, which is a race, ethnicity and gender form. And that is an optional form. You can apply for the program by accessing www.farmers.gov slash quality-loss and there is an application portal there where you can complete the application online. Or we suggest and strongly encourage you to contact your local service center locator and contact your local office for assistance. So QLA payments are broken into two different crop categories. We have crops intended for forage and crops other than forage. The first group we're going to talk about is when we get into more detail is the crops other than forage. But what quality discounts will we be looking at? QLA will consider all quality discounts recognized by the industry. Quality discounts that are associated with the loss that could have been mitigated such as high moisture or insect infestation are not eligible. And the farm service agencies, county committees are responsible before determining whether a loss could have been mitigated or not. So an example here would be a producer's corn crop received a quality discount due to high moisture content. Would this producer be eligible for the QLA program? They would not because if that's the only loss they had, losses due to high moisture for crops that could have been dried down, which are most of the crops in North Dakota such as corn, soybeans, wheat that could be dried down. The losses due to high moisture are not eligible because the producer could have mitigated that quality loss by using the best practices for drying and storing the crop. Verifiable documentation includes records of that can be verified by FSA through an independent source or a third party. The records that will be used to substantiate the amount of quality loss they must be dated and show final disposition and be seasonal or crop specific for the commodities produced more than once in a calendar year, which up here in the tundra, we don't have a lot of those. So that's the information you'll have to provide to verify your quality loss. Verifying quality loss for crops other than forage, the verifiable documentation must come from tests or analysis conducted within 30 days of harvest. There is an exception for grain crops that were sold. Verifiable documentation at the time of sale is acceptable as long as the as long as the county committee can determine that the crop was maintained using best management practices. For forage crops, we look at the nutritional value and forage quality tests or analysis of nutritional value must have been completed within 30 days of harvest. Quality losses for hay and forage crops must be documented with an analysis from either the following state university laboratory or other laboratories approved by state FSA committee. The NDSU does not do nutrient value tests. So the if you are applying for a forage crop and have those nutrient value tests, we want to make sure you're in contact with your county office and then the state committee will review them to see if they are eligible. So under QLA payments will be based on on the producer's loss for crops other than forage if the producer can provide documentation of the grading factors such as the low test weight or broken kernels and also a total dollar value loss which we'll explain as we go through the rest of this presentation. Payments will be based on the producer's loss for forage crops if the nutrient value for the year of application can be provided and also the nutrient values for three prior years. So here for an example of using a producer's loss, we have a producer sold 10,000 bushels of corn. The settlement sheet shows the producer received a reduced price of two dollars per bushel due to a low test weight. The producer's verifiable evidence shows both a quality loss which so we documented on the settlement sheet that there was low test weight and a total dollar value loss of 20,000 dollars which would be that discounted price of two dollars times the 10,000 bushels. So if both of those are documented on that settlement sheet then the producer could use or would receive a payment for QLA based on their loss. If the producer doesn't have those verifiable documentation the payment will be based on the county average for crops other than forage that producer would still need to provide verifiable documentation of the grading factors but they wouldn't have that total dollar value loss so maybe they fed it or it's still in storage so they didn't have a total dollar value loss that they could provide documentation for. In those situations then we'll pay based on a county average. For the forage crops if the producer can only provide a nutrient value documentation for the year of application but didn't have those previous three years of documentation then the producer will be paid they're still eligible but they'd be paid based on a county average and we'll go through some payment examples as we get further into this presentation. So an example of this would be a producer delivered 10,000 bushels of corn they have scale tickets to show the corn had a quality discount due to broken kernels so they ran it over the scale and had documentation that it had broken kernels but the producer decided not to sell it and stored it for feet. The producer has that verifiable evidence showing a quality loss but then they don't have that total dollar value loss to be able to use their own producer loss so they're going to be paid based on the county average. So now we'll get to into more detail on non-forage crops so these crops will include all crops not intended for forage or any crop with an intended use other than forage. Producers must have suffered a loss due to the quality with verifiable grading factors directly related to that qualifying disaster event. Effective production is the producer's ownership share of harvested production adjusted to standard moisture for an eligible crop that experienced both the quality loss due to the qualifying disaster event so that's our snowstorm excessive moisture flooding and have at least a five percent quality loss due to all eligible disaster events combined. The effective production must have suffered a loss due to quality or due to quality and have verifiable quality factors so again we always need at a minimum to have those grading factors documentation of that needs to be provided with the application. The other thing I want to touch on on this slide is we talk about the ownership the producer's ownership share of the harvested production. So if I share in the crop with my husband 50-50 so I have 50 percent of the crop my husband has 50 percent of the crop when we file our applications we're not going to put 100% of the crop on each application with a 50% share that's not how this application is designed. This application we need to put 50% on Laura's application and 50% on my husband's application so we need to reduce the the bushels on the application needs to be reduced for our and include just our share of the crop. Verifiable documentation records include sales receipts from buyers, settlement sheets, trucker warehouse scale tickets, actual measurements or appraisals by FSA or RMA, loss adjusters or other USDA employees if they're performing their work duties. Other documentation records may come from feed company representatives who did a measurement or a state committee approved consultant. The quantity of effective production claimed on the application must be supported with non-verifiable records of production which may include copies of receipts, ledgers of income, income statements of deposit slips, cash register tapes, invoices from custom harvesting, you pick records. So to help support that quantity that you're putting on the application if you don't have a sales document or you don't have a measurement service completed you could use what we call contemporaneous records or it may consist of feed records if you fed the crop. Something to substantiate the quantity of affected production that you're certifying to on the application. Producers that suffered a quality loss will fall into two categories regarding verifiable documentation. If they have verifiable documentation for grading factors and a total dollar value loss their payment will be based on their own individual loss. If they have verifiable documentation for the grading factors but no total dollar value loss value documentation the amount they receive will be discounted and it will be based on a county average. So let's go through some payment examples. So Lucy certifies to 100,000 bushels of affected corn due to drought in 2019. The corn price before discount is $4 the bushel. The discounted price received was $3 the bushel due to low test weight so there is a dollar discount. Therefore Lucy's total dollar value loss amount is $100,000 calculated as follows. So the 100,000 bushels times the $4 which was the price before discount gives us $400,000 and then we subtract what she actually received so the $100,000 times the $3 per bushel which is $300,000. So $400,000 minus $300,000 is $100,000 of loss. Payment will be based on the producer's loss if verifiable documentation has both grading factors and the total value loss. So Lucy's documentation shows the grading factors plus it showed the $4 that she would have received and shows the dollar discount that she received for the net price of $3 per bushel. So if her documentation shows all of this she's going to be paid on her loss times 70%. So to calculate Miss Lucy's payment we would multiply her total dollar value loss by 70% so the $100,000 times 70% to get a QLA program payment of $70,000. This payment may be reduced further if we don't have sufficient funds so there may be an additional factor. Payments for non-forge crops without a total dollar value loss are determined using the following calculation. We'll have the total affected production multiplied by the county weighted average dollar value on affected production that'll give us our loss amount. Once we figure that loss amount we multiply that by 70% factor and then it'll be multiplied by an additional 50% factor. So in this scenario this is where our producer had taken the crop in and had it tested and so they have that verifiable quality factors but then they have it either stored at home or they fed it. So in this scenario we're going to apply that additional factor and use a county weighted average dollar value. So the example is producer Jimmy had 80 acres of wheat that yielded 65 bushels per acre for a total of 5,200 bushels of durum wheat. He certified that he had 1,200 bushels that had a quality loss due to falling numbers that was due to an eligible weather event. So in this scenario Jimmy had a portion of his crop that was taken off. He'd already harvested, had no quality discounts before the rain started. So he only has 1,200 bushels out of the 5,200 bushels that were affected. So that's what he's applying for for QLA. He also certified that he had a wheat, the wheat sampled and tested for quality and he has the verifiable documentation to support the quality loss. However, Jimmy did not have a price before the discount for the crop. So after sign up ended it was determined that the average dollar value loss on affected production for durum wheat intended for grain conventionally grown was $1.10. This was based on the applications filed with crops sold with verifiable total dollar value loss. So that dollar amount will not be determined until after sign up is completed. FSA will go and look at all of the applications for durum wheat in that county and then they will determine what the average dollar value loss was for durum wheat in that specific county. It was further determined that price for durum wheat intended for grain conventionally grown was $6. So that's our price before discount. This was based on a weighted average of applications filed with crops sold with verifiable total dollar value loss. So again after sign up we're going to look for the loss amount was and what that price before discount was. The $1.10 divided by our $6 results in a calculated percentage of loss of 18.33%. So because the loss was calculated for that county at 18.33% which is greater than our 5% threshold, Jimmy qualifies for the following payment. He had 1200 bushels that were affected. We multiplied that by the $1.10 average dollar value loss of affected production. That's determined by FSA to get our loss amount of $1,320. We then apply the 70% payment factor plus the additional 50% payment factor gives us a total gross payment of $462. And again that $462 may need to be factored after sign up if we don't have, if there are funds available to be able to pay out all the payments at 100%. So now we're going to go into a couple examples of what kind of documentation producers may obtain and how they would complete the application. So McDonnell Farm and Transport Inc. has sold 1,882.7 bushels of wheat for grain. 1,082.84 bushels had a quality loss due to falling numbers protein and bombotoxin due to excessive moisture that occurred between May 1st and September 30th, 2019. McDonnell Farm and Transport Inc. also had 1,500 bushels in storage. They certified that these bushels also have quality losses due to falling numbers protein and bombotoxin resulting from excessive moisture. So in this scenario because that producer had sold crop that had the verifiable quality factors determined and they can provide documentation of that they can say that the quality of the crop that's still in the bin is the same as what was sold and therefore they're going to apply for the 1,500 bushels using the sold production quality factors. So here's an example of the assembly sheet that the producer will provide with their application. So it shows our net bushels of 243.34. For the first load it has our price before discount of five dollars and five cents and then it's showing our discounted price for each type of quality factor. So it has our protein discount, our falling number discount, and our bombotoxin discount. So if we total those three up we get $1.36 so we have our 243.34 bushels times the $1.36 discount gives us our total dollar value loss for that load of $330.94. The next load also has our net bushels, our price before discount of 505. Again we have our discounts are the same for both loads so $1.36 so we're going to take our 839.5 net bushels for the second load times the $1.36 gives us $1,141.72. The third load was not quality affected so it wouldn't be included on the application. So this example is for Minnesota county so we're going to put our recording state and county again only one application is filed for the producer for all of their land in in every state and county in the U.S. excuse me so you're only filing one application that'll include all of your counties and you're going to put your recording county or your control county in items one and two and then your crop year and item three that you're applying on. Part A is just that what you're certifying to so you want to read through that and then part B is where you put in the producer's name and address so this producer had both crops other than forage with a total dollar value loss and crops other than forage without the total dollar value loss. So they're going to complete parts D and parts E of the FSA 898. In item 22 you're putting in the physical location of where that crop was grown so it's not the administrative county that you deal with that FSA it's where that crop is physically grown is what you're going to list in item 22 you'll put in your crop and crop type in 23 and 24 the intended use in item 25 and then the organic status in item 26. You'll put in your qualifying disaster event in this example it's excessive moisture and then the dates of that disaster event. So this producer is saying the disaster event was from May 1st to September 30th of 2019 entering the unit of measure in item 30 and then our total affected production in item 31 so those are our two loads combined. We're going to put in our type of quality loss in item 32 which we're showing our protein our falling numbers in our vomitoxin and then we'll enter in our total dollar value loss in item 33 and then our price before discount the 505 and item 34. For our 1500 bushels that were still stored that we had our verifiable grading factors for but we didn't haven't sold yet so we couldn't include those in part D. We enter that in part E we're going to enter in the same information for our physical location our crop type intended use organic status disaster events and dates 46 will be their unit of measure our total affected production is 1500 and then our type of quality loss discount will be entered in for item 48. Again there's no total dollar value loss or price before discount that the producer certifies in part E because that's the determination that'll be made by the farm service agency after sign-up has completed and then in part F is where the producer will sign in date. Another example farmer Joe has sold 19,546.43 bushels of corn for grain. All 19,000 bushels have a quality loss due to test weight and broken kernel foreign matter due to excessive moisture that occurred between January 1st 2019 and December 31st. So in this example the producer is providing a settlement sheet it has our total net bushels listed on it it has our price before discount again there's three assembly sheets that are included on this settlement and it gives us our weighted average of all three assembly sheets of the three 3.1097 cents per bushel it has our total test weight and foreign broken kernel foreign matter reductions so those are totaled for all three assembly sheets on this once a settlement sheet and then on the bottom it's also showing what our quality factors was so it has our net units it has what our test weight actually came in at for each assembly sheet and then it also shows what our broken kernel foreign matter so in this scenario again this is the producer would put their recording state and county this is in North Dakota so we have North Dakota and item one in our county and item two for 2019 this is the crop year and item three producers name address goes in part b we'll complete the application with the physical location and item 22 our crop type and intended use in 23 through 25 along with our organic status in 26 disaster events and dates in 27 through 29 unit of measure and 30 our total affected production so we're including all of the bushels were quality affected on the settlement sheet so we're including the total affected production of 19,546.43 we're putting our type of quality loss discount in item 32 of test weight and broken kernel foreign matter and then total dollar value loss of affected production 4566.08 so that's the total of the test weight discounts and the broken kernel foreign matter and then the price before discount again that was the weighted on the settlement sheet of all three assembly sheets of three dollars 3.1097 dollars per bushel the producer will sign and date in item 52a and 52c so that's our non forage crops the next section we'll get into is forage crops which is based on nutritional value forage quality tests or analysis of nutritional value must have been completed within 30 days of harvest again with this and if you under the non forage crops if you have crops that were tested outside that 30 calendar days we want you to contact your county office to see if it is acceptable or not but the general rule is that those tests need to be within 30 days quality losses for hay and forage crops must be documented with an analysis from either at the state university if the state university conducts those types of tests or other laboratories that are approved by the state fsa committee forage crops will be broken into high and low nutritional value categories based on the expected quality for the timing of the harvest within the crop year so basically when we talk about high and low quality that's based on the number the cuttings so which if the cutting would be determined to be low nutritional value or high nutritional value and that is a producer certification of whether that cutting or that production would be considered high or low nutritional value so producer summer all routinely harvest five cuttings of alfalfa each year the first and last cuttings are generally lower in quality while the second third and fourth cuttings are higher in quality so this obviously is an example of of hay production that's further south than north dakota most of the time we may we probably get three cuttings at the best so if that first cutting is the cutting that would be determined low quality and then the second and third would be high quality that's how the producer should certify that um production on the application um producer summer all suffered a loss due to drought in 2018 at a time that a fourth cutting would typically be harvested summer all would use the representative laboratory analysis for the third second third and fourth cuttings to determine the nutritional values as high nutritional category a producer must have four years of a nutritional value values representing either higher low nutritional value categories and one for the year of application which is one for the year of application in three historical years in addition to that they must also provide both production and historical nutritional value of the specific crop type intended use and organic status on the fsa 899 so if the producer is applying on um historical nutritional they'll have two forms they'll have the fsa 899 in addition to the fs the three years of historical value will be broken into high and low nutritional value categories to be placed on fsa 899 the producer will submit historical nutritional values that are representative of the application year based on the timing and number of harvest within the year if you only harvest one time a year so you only do one cutting that would be determined as high nutritional value so producer low submitted an application for 2018 due to drought in an eligible county low will provide verifiable documentation of nutritional values and acceptable documentation of production for 2015 16 and 17 they calculate the weighted average historical nutritional value and then also will provide the 2018 verifiable documentation for the application year nutritional value and acceptable documentation of the effective production for 2018 so how will we calculate the payments um for forage crops uh qla payments will be equal to the total effective production times the verifiable percent loss times the average market price times 0.7 so that's if they have the historical nutritional values that average market price is a price that's determined by um the state fsa committee um and is applicable they set that price per county and per type of forage again that payment may be further reduced if there's not sufficient funds available so our example um for a payment would be producer jordan had 800 acres of alfalfa that yielded four tons per acre for a total of 3200 tons of hay jordan certified 800 tons of alfalfa that had a quality loss due to excessive moisture occurring from june 1st 2019 through august 31st that was fed to livestock jordan produces high quality alfalfa hay and tests for quality annually jordan completed the historical nutritional evaluated average worksheet the fsa 898 for year 16 through 18 to find his weighted historical nutrition nutritional value of 116 and then jordan certified that in 2019 their verifiable documentation that supported an application year nutritional value of 80 so jordan's calculated verifiable percentage nutritional loss was determined to be 31.03 percent so one minus 80 divided by the 116 so the 116 was our historical average 80 was the current because jordan's loss was 31 percent at least that meant or that was above the 5 threshold therefore he qualifies for payment so to calculate the payment we take the 800 tons times the 31.03 percent we multiply that by the 125 dollars which is determined price for the commodity equals a payment of 31,030 dollars we multiply that by the 70 payment factor for a gross payment of 21,721 dollars and again that 21,000 dollars may be factored further if there's not adequate funding available at after sign up so for forage crops with only an application year nutritional value the county average percent of loss for each crop type intended use and organic status and nutritional category will be computed after all applications within the county have been submitted and reviewed and an additional reduction of 50 percent will be applied to the producer's benefit so in that scenario if they only have the current year quality loss and not the historical to calculate the payment will take the total affected production times the county average percent loss times the average market price times 0.7 times 0.5 so this example is producer jody had 800 acres of a legume grass mix forage which was conventionally grown that yielded four tons per acre for a total of 3200 tons jody certified that 400 tons of the mixed forage had a quality loss due to excessive moisture jody had a quality test done on the 400 tons and had and had produced hay in the prior years but was unable to provide a verifiable forage test for the historical years after sign up was complete it was determined that the weighted average percent of loss for legume grass mix forage conventionally grown for forage in the high tier nutritional category was 25 percent since this is greater than a five percent loss jody qualifies for the following payment will take the 400 tons that jody certifying were quality affected that he could provide his quality test for we take the 400 tons times 25 percent that was the county average that was determined take that times 90 dollars which is the price for his mixed forage so 400 times 25 percent times 90 dollars is $9000 loss amount we take that times the 70 percent payment factor times a 50 percent payment factor for a total of $3150 gross estimated payment again that gross estimated payment may be reduced further if we don't have funds available so here's an example of completing an application we're using an example out of texas because we haven't received one in north dakota yet so sue submits an application for 2018 due to drought in an eligible county sue provides a verifiable documentation of nutritional value and acceptable documentation of production for 15 16 and 17 to calculate the weighted average historical nutritional value 2018 verifiable documentation for the application year nutritional value and acceptable documentation of effective production was also supplied so here's some um here's some examples of what they provided for production or for quality evidence so this is from a forge testing lab from dairy one it shows our relative feed value of 41 this is our let's go back a screen so here it shows our 2000 this is for 2018 so we have 41 for 2018 for 2015 we have 74 16 we have 73 17 we have 83 so we'll complete our fsa 899 to show our production for each year we're in our high tier year and our historical tests show 74 for year 15 for year 16 it's a nutritional value of 73 and 17 it's 83 so we enter that information on the application we'll compute our weighted average it comes out to a 77.57 historical average nutritional value we then need to take that information and complete our fsa 898 qla application again we'll put the physical location in item six where the crop was produced we'll put our type of crop so this is mixed forage igs intended for forage conventional items 11 through 13 will be our disaster event and dates we'll put our unit of measure so again we had the 64 was our nutritional value for 2018 our category is high tier the current verifiable nutritional value of 41 and then our historical is 77.57 so our effective production was 64 tons our current nutritional value for 2018 was 41 i think i said that wrong before i apologize and then our historical verifiable nutritional value which we got from our um our other form is a is 77.57 so that's how we'll complete it for forage crops so again um we've visited about this at the beginning but just how do i apply you're going to do one application for the entire operation nationwide in the recording or your control county office the application includes all eligible crops suffering a quality loss so you can include more than one crop on the application um the losses sustained in more than one crop year require a separate application for each crop year so if you're applying for 2018 and 2019 you'd have two separate applications if you're if you're brand new um with working with fsa that's not a problem at all we want you to contact your local county office there's a link at the bottom the last bullet of this slide um for contact information to get a hold of your local office they'll ask you for your name and address some personal information including your tax ID number um your farm operating structure um you'll have to complete forms for your adjusted gross income and other certifications um they'll ask if you'd like to um have your payment direct deposited and collect that information from you and then if you don't have an acreage report on file they'll have you complete an acreage report for the quality loss assistance program again you can find the application itself that we covered um the 877 um on our farmers.gov website slash quality-loss we also have a nationwide customer call center um if you we encourage you to contact your local office but you can also call this customer call center they're operating hours are 7 a.m to 7 p.m and that person who answers the phone will assist you one on one on completing the application or directing you to your applicable county office so after you submit your application you have 14 days from signing the application to submit all the verifiable documentation to support your quality loss so we encourage you to submit it all at the same time but if for some reason you needed to get additional documentation you do have 14 days from signing the application to submit it you also have 60 days to submit any of those remaining at producer eligibility forms such as your adjusted gross income or your wetland highly rotable certification qla payments will not be um issued to producers until after the application period ends on March 5th because we have to go through the process of determining those county averages for those producers who didn't have um total dollar value loss documentation if the total amount of needed qla payment exceeds the amount of funding available we will do that additional factor as discussed throughout the presentation um if for any additional information on the program you can visit farmers.gov slash quality-loss we also encourage you to sign up for Gov delivery this slide just has how you can um do a text message to get that information so with that I think we're ready for questions Miranda and Ron well we have a lot of questions that is for sure we'll try and get it kind of summarized Miranda just sent out a poll here and then we'll have you answer that first and we can start going through questions while you guys are answering the poll since we have a lot of them to go through okay um I'll just kind of pick and choose here uh the first of all that there's been questions on whip and qla um is there going to be a second this is good is there going to be another uh the 50 percent on the whip payment the other 50 percent sure that's a great question um because the funding of the two programs are tied together um it's one pot of money um they can't make that decision on whether to pay the other 50 percent of 2019 for what plus until we've completed um the qla program okay and then they'll make a determination on the 2019 and we're getting several questions here dealing with the five percent threshold uh what what how do you how do you determine the five percent I guess could you maybe run through that again the five percent is based on on the total dollar value loss so that's how we're going to determine whether there's a five percent loss or not so we take the the price before discount um times the quantity affected to get the total value of the crop and then we divide the total dollar value loss by the total value of the crop to determine the five percent and that's just on the affected affected uh production not on the the non-affected that's on the affected production that the producer um enters onto the application okay uh let me see here um people are wondering about uh the the the the payments for silage and earlage um is that what determined by the county then county committee so when we're talking silage and earlage are we saying that that's what the crop was intended to be harvested for I guess the question doesn't say I guess but okay um that would be under I mean if it's intended for silage that's going to be under the forage crops because that's intended for forage so they'd have to have the quality losses and they for quality um the nutrient tests for the for the silage and apply under the forage portion okay there's a question of uh somebody was using a hedge price uh to hedge their crop uh do you use you do you use that that price or the market price we need to determine the price the price for before discount will be what is shown on the settlement sheet so I guess I'm so if they're using a hedge Ron I'm I'm what's I'm guessing that's not showing up on the settlement sheet that's a separate right is that how you're taking that Ron that's us that would be something separate outside we just look at what's on that settlement sheet yeah and and with all of these specific situations and individual questions um just just run it by your local FSA office and if they can't answer the state office well try and answer because some of this stuff some of these questions of course there's a lot of things behind the scenes too so we're trying to answer the the best we can here with the limited amount of time um exactly um on corn then uh if the test weight was low and no and they couldn't find a buyer so it was it was fed uh then what happens they'd have to have verifiable documentation of what that test weight was so if that crop was insured and your crop insurance um company came out and adjusted it so the loss adjuster came out and they took a sample and got that sample tested and it showed that low test weight of 47 48 pounds um if you have that verifiable documentation of what the test weight was you can use that um you are going to be subject because you didn't sell it um you are going to be subject to that additional 50 factor uh there's a question about uh the the webinar that we are having today it is being recorded and if somebody if somebody didn't get to watch it where will it be posted Miranda hi that is I put that link in the chat box it should be the same place you guys registered for the webinar it'll be posted there hopefully by tomorrow okay uh let me see uh another question dealing with the 5 quality loss eligibility if they hauled 10 loads of 2019 corner to the elevator in february of 2020 is that's over 30 days then would you need county uh committee approval there if the production is sold the county committee can accept the quality determined when it is sold as long as the crop was maintained in the bin under good farming practices right uh there's a question about net or gross quantities I would assume it would be gross quantities right it it's going to be net you're using your net bushels off yeah because we want to take off that shrink so we're going to use net bushels yeah okay gotcha let me see Mike wait every time I'm trying to read a question they added some more questions and it moves down on me here well they're asking great questions let's this is good conversation what about on corn uh a discount for sour does that count um discount for sour the producer would have to I mean if they're certifying that it's due to the qualifying disaster event so is it did the sour um quality come from while it was still in the field due to the qualifying disaster event of I'm assuming excessive moisture um if it is then they could they could include it on their application if it's something that happened in the bin after it was harvested then no it's not eligible okay so there's quite a few questions on things that were on harvested because of the conditions and if those things are eligible what be it wheat or corn it was left in the field and not harvested if the crop is not harvested it's not eligible for the quality loss assistance program because those losses were paid under the whip plus program those production that's considered a production loss and that would have been handled under the whip plus application right here's kind of a long question I'll just actually read it here I had I had 2019 corn stored on the farm when I started delivering I had foreign matter discounts I bought a screener and screened the remaining I delivered in screen corn to the the screen corn to the elevator with no discounts and delivered the screenings to a local feedlot um I got about 50 60 of the price uh what what do you have to say about that at this time we it needs to show we need to look at how that crop was sold and so if there is no discounts when the crop was sold it is not eligible okay here's uh I think I know the answer to this but I'll run it by anyway if you have let's say you have 25 different settlements with different prices how do you fill out the dollar value I'm assuming you would use a weighted average at this time you there's I know there's only four lines on the application um so you would there is a continuation sheet that you can download and put additional lines of data on so we want you you enter it if it's different per settlement sheet if you have different prices per settlement sheet you'd enter each settlement sheet on there we are trying to work through if there could possibly be a document that NDSU could assist producers in and coming up with a weighted average price of all those settlement sheets we're working on that but at this time that's not available so you can still complete the application using that the original application plus the continuation sheets to list each 20 I think you said 25 25 a cent okay what qualifies for a quality loss in I don't know it moved on me again what for in dry beans picked cracked seed coat splits whatever we do we do look at industry standards is what we look at for quality factors we haven't I have not seen a lot of production evidence for dry beans yet to go through those different quality factors but we can if that producer wants to email me my email addresses at the beginning of this presentation we can take a look at that and and help them do the application okay here's a question on the linkage for purchasing crop insurance coverage in future years someone that's retired at the end of 2020 and would not intend on buying crop insurance anymore than what there are exceptions if the producer is no longer farming they can contact their local county office and describe their scenario and in the county office can look up in the handbook what provisions are available for linkage for that producer so I encourage them to contact their local office and visit with them about that okay here's another long question well we're getting a few barley questions here this person has a barley contract for 480 it reads that vama toxin you must must be below the 1% or for no discount from one to two there's a 0.25 discount and etc when the load is rejected and there's no record of the load recorded then the then the load was taken to a non-human consumption market and sold for a lesser price the only paperwork to to verify the original malt contract was the proof that the contract was not filled what do you think about that right we are working through some of those issues at this time because the the assembly sheet for the feed barley does not show that starting price of the malting barley contract it it's not eligible under the provisions the where they are right now so what we would encourage producers to do is still get your documentation put together um we are working with the national office to see and with the barley industry to see if there's anything we can do with this scenario but we encourage the those producers to get their documentation together so we'd want them to get their contract the rejection letter which would show their quality discounts because we need to make sure we have those quality discounts documented and then the feed price that they sold it for um and make sure they have that documentation ready and then as soon as we get information from our national office we'll share that with our county offices on whether they can accept that documentation or not okay here's a question uh harvested 100 000 bushels 25 000 bushels were hauled in and you and they had a quality loss in dollars on the assembly sheet the other 75 000 still in the bin it has been measured and and and and quality and quality determined by the crop insurance company does the 75 000 bushels go to the county average at 50 percent payment yes it would okay okay what about wheat that is not marketable and still in storage due to high air get okay if the produce series is stating that air get is caused by one of our qualifying disaster events then they could apply on that they'd have to have verification of the air get you know just so they'd have to have had it tested and have verifiable documentation of that they could certify to that quantity that's affected since it hasn't been sold to be subject to that additional 50 percent and based on county average loss okay this person sold 50 000 bushels a corn before the discount the price was 350 after the discount it was 332 do they submit an application on the average of the 50 000 bushels or or every load the loads had a range of zero to 44 cents per bushel discount they should only be including those bushels that were affected so the if they had no quality effect if they had some loads that were not quality affected they should be excluded from the application but if there's any type of quality discount that was on a load it should be included in the application okay okay well here's person that that the elevator rejected some of the wheat at another elevator accepted it i guess uh um i guess i'm not sure what the question is there uh i guess that's uh i guess if they accepted it me if they paid a feed wheat price then then there's a situation where you don't have the price the market price again well right and that would be similar to what we're saying for barley and we know we have um feed wheat issues also where you held it to the elevator they wouldn't purchase it as um grade one milling wheat um and ended up purchasing it for feed wheat in that scenario again because your documentation that you received only shows the price before discount is going to be that feed wheat price and so it's not going to show that you had met a five percent loss again we are working with the national office and that scenario on what producers can provide to possibly be eligible for the program so and with feed wheat we want that producer to make sure that they have um you know start getting getting your documentation put together um they can look at make sure that there's quality discounts documented on um the assembly sheet or settlement sheet that was sold for feed um if not then they may want to talk to their elevator and and see um if they can get some type of document of what the quality of their wheat was um as to why it was not basically rejected and and purchase for feed um the other thing they'd be looking at is what was the price for grade one milling wheat or board price for wheat on the date that it was purchased for feed they could get some of that documentation put together again we can't assure that it's going to be eligible for the program but we are working for a national with our national office on it and um you know this is a good time for producers to you have a little bit more time in the winter before you start getting busy here with calving and and planting and it's going to be here sooner than but i think i'm ready for it but anyways this kind of quiet time right now we want you to try to get all your documentation put together um and then hopefully we'll be able to come up with a solution and and see if they're eligible for the program uh here's a question just to clarify there's no compensation for increased drier costs uh because this person had 30 more drier costs because of the wet wet corn i assume no there's not okay uh if a producer has 30 different assembly sheets uh there again i think you answered this one uh then uh there's a does the producer average the discounts and put it all on one application you advise to use the continuation sheet right correct okay corn if you have i think i think i know the answer to this one too if you had corn quality lost due to damage after storage uh i guess i'm not sure what that that means evidently it got damaged well in storage uh that would not qualify right correct okay and so okay this one here do i understand correctly um do i only include bushels of the crop the loads that show a five percent quality loss reduction it should be you're going to include any production that was quality affected yep so it could be anywhere from 0.1 percent to how a 30 percent but it has to have some type of quality loss and then you're going to include it and then we look at all of the effective production that you put on your application to determine if you're eligible all the production that you put on your application has to average that five percent loss yeah well if you had crop insurance measure and grade your production that's verifiable documentation correct you would need the document from the loss adjuster that shows what the quality of that crop was so whatever they included in their loss adjustment file where it shows the quality like they took it to the elevator or wherever they sent it to to get tested you need that documentation to provide to us so if you had a let's say you had a production loss uh for crop insurance and they and they used quality factors to adjust your loss those factors that they used are still our could be the same factors for this program is that correct i guess the word factor i'm pausing on a little bit when i we want that documentation that shows the test weight was this the broken kernel form matter was this or if falling number was this bomb a toxin was this we need that document not not the loss adjusters worksheet we need the document itself where they had sent it in and got it back to know what those grading factors were okay maybe Miranda you could answer this too that will the extension forge uh quality formula be a variable verifiable source i don't uh so we don't have a lab here we don't have a formula now do we or do we we don't have a forge lab here i mean and there according to our discussion yesterday with Laura is that you need it it needs to be tested from a lab so there is a list of labs i sent that to Laura but it has to be a certified forge lab i know there's a couple other questions maybe Laura could expand on related to this is if you're looking for relative feed value or tdn in that quality and then and then also since there's not a lot of folks in the state that produce a lot of forge producers in terms of alfalfa in an area would you use a state to average instead of a county average those are great questions um so yes the way the handbook states is that we can use automatically use state labs um since ndsu doesn't have one we the state committee needs to approve the labs that are that are used so um kind of like i said before we haven't seen a lot of applications yet on orage so we're we're just kind of getting our feet wet on what type of labs um producers are using in north dakota um so the state committee does need to approve those labs to to be able to use the that documentation for the application um in regards to determining a county average um what we look at is there's there's supposed to be five producers in a county or they can go to surrounding counties to determine that county loss um if we're outside of that we're not sure what is going to happen um that's the decision that's made at the national level and not at a local or state level so um we're we're not exactly sure what will happen if we don't have five producers or five producers in surrounding counties yeah i guess i may have read that question wrong i said qual uh extension for its quality formula it says quantity formula uh so i'm assuming that's extension has a has a formula to try calculate the forage i guess does that make sense we can help there's there's probably not so much extension but there we if there's some documentation of production forage production um that are i suppose there's county and there's county level data too as far as forage classes but i don't think we we don't have a um a forage quantity formula beyond those methods of estimating biomass right right and that producer would need to provide some type of documentation to support the quantity they're putting on there so they would need to have you know their their bail counts um something something written document that the county committee can review to determine if that's acceptable production record or not uh question about low sugar content on sugar beets does uh due to due to excessive moisture does that qualify sugar beets were were handled differently under whip plus slash qla because they were paid out of the cooperatives we are not including sugar beets oh in our in the quality loss assistance program and then um i'm and then pro uh low protein wheat does not qualify either right as a as a as a as a quality factor low protein wheat may qualify if it's due to one of those qualifying weather events so if excessive moisture caused the the low protein then that may be a situation where if it was discounted it would be eligible okay let me see i guess i'm okay when getting the board price established on the date of the sale uh they're talking about uh do we use the milling quote for Durham and the 14% protein for spring wheat those that's a good question um we do not have all the we don't know what we can accept or not i guess i would encourage the producer is if you would have taken it in and you would have sold it that day and and it wouldn't have had quality discounts what would it have been sold for okay uh is start is starch in corn considered a quality loss that one i'm not familiar with ron do you have any input i don't know i've never heard of it i don't know so i i guess i don't know if that's an industry standard for quality or not i have not heard of that one um the producer can submit you know the question to their county office with some documentation and we can take a look at it or they could email it to me directly okay here's the situation where they had some hard-bread spring wheat adjusted by crop insurance at uh five bushels an acre due to drought and then was bailed for hay due to excess of rain uh after that so what do you think let's say about that if they didn't have any production that was quality affected like harvested production that was quality affected it would not be eligible okay there's a few questions out there on corn it was harvested in 2020 instead of 2019 that is acceptable we we know that that was unfortunately common practice in north dakota to harvest 2019 crop well into 2020 um that that is that is eligible for it'd be a 2019 crop so you when you're applying you'd apply the year of application would be 2019 right um another question on wheat protein um you mentioned that it would qualify is there a is there a point where it qualifies at at what protein level again it's going to be based on your dollar loss so you'd have to have a five percent overall dollar loss of quality okay uh on Durham uh does low hard count um is that a quality loss Ron that's the HD there's a hard yeah instead of hard amber it's just hard there's a HD I believe it's called yeah yeah if that's an I believe that's industry standard so yes if there is a discount for that and it was due to the qualifying disaster event is why you had the loss then you could apply on it um this is what the uh is the yeah the is the price before discount simply the documented sale price of the non-forge crop yes okay anything from you Miranda I'm going to read this one here there's a few people asking where to get the where to find the continuation sheet the continuation sheet is out on our forms website um and it should be out on the available when you go to farmers.gov it should have a link to it there if not your local county office can provide it okay here's a situation where the corn was all chopped and bagged for feed in 19 because of excessive moisture and poor quality um what let me see I don't know what records they have to go back and possibly claim the loss under the program um I guess it yeah what what records do you have to have for that why don't they that would be one where I want them to email me that question and and we'll do some more research on it okay uh spring wheat that was left in the field and not harvested due to low falling numbers and excess moisture uh do I have an option to apply on those acres it has not I gather it has not it did not get harvested right the crop has to be harvested to be eligible for QLA and some of these questions are kind of the same here we already answered some here uh if the crop insurance reduces the bushels to qualify we do we use uh can we use the actual production or or the or will the bushels be reduced or disqualified I mean let me read that again if if crop insurance reduces the bushels due to quality which they do then can we use the actual production or will the bushels reduced be disqualified uh for this program for this program you're going to use your harvested bushels the harvest so what you actually sold right or what is in the band is what you're going to apply on and then you'd need to have your verifiable quality factors um for that quantity there's um several questions on you know if it was fed to livestock instead instead of sold because of the quality and how how does that work again for those they're they're going to need to have some verifiable verifiable evidence of what the quality was so if crop insurance had come out um done a loss adjustment sent took a sample and sent it in um they need the copy of what that um those quality factors were and then they're going to certify to the quantity um and be able to support that quantity that they're applying or that they're certifying to on the application so they're going to have the quantity that they fed um and then have the verifiable quality factors of that quantity and then they're going to be paid based on the county average and that applicable 50 percent additional 50 percent reduction in the payment is the affected production calculated by fsa farm number it's by everything right ask that question again uh is the affected production calculated by fsa farm number no the affected production is by physical location a physical location and here's a county location okay here's a question that i wanted to get at here they had low falling numbers on their wheat in 2019 the crop insurer uh crop insurance agency did give they got a payment from crop insurance and have documented the low falling numbers later was able to blend this low quality wheat um with the height with a higher quality wheat the next year and sell it but they when they sold it the grain elevate you know there was no document you know the they had a price then uh they don't have a discount amount from the elevator because it was all blended if they don't show that that they have a dollar loss then they're not eligible for the program okay even though they even though it it was documented by crop insurance correct because they don't if they sold the crop and they didn't have a dollar value loss they're not eligible okay it does look like we are out of time yeah we will make sure to save the questions but and i and maybe we can figure out a way to address some of these more popular ones but if you need and if not if miranda if if if their question wasn't answered we'd like you to reach out to your county office and they should be able to answer your questions for you otherwise my contact information was included in the slides well with that i guess we'll have to cut it off here we appreciate the the great attendance and we hope we you've helped we've helped you out in in this new program and and there's a lot of questions about state fsa is very good at eventually getting everything answered for you and and work with your local office and they're always good to work with and and we'll get this figured out what was the sign-up deadline again um march march fifth which is coming up pretty quick here it is it is thank you again ron and miranda and all of ndsu for helping us get this information out we really appreciate it okay thanks a lot bye