FSA Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) sign up starts today and runs through March 5^th

What is it?
QLA aids producers who had eligible crop quality losses due to natural disasters in 2018 and 2019. The qualifying disasters that were most common to our area include excess moisture, flooding, and snowstorms.

Who is eligible?
Eligible producers include individuals or legal entities that are entitled to an ownership share and are at risk in the production and marketing of crops on the farm. Crops must have suffered a quality loss due to a qualifying event and had a five percent or greater quality discount due to the qualifying disaster event. Eligible crops may have been sold, fed to on farm livestock, or may be in storage at time of application.

How to Qualify?
Producers must provide verifiable documentation of losses (ie sales receipts, settlement sheets, scale tickets, and lab test results). Except for grain crops that have been sold, the documentation must be from lab tests within 30 days of harvest to be acceptable. For grain crops that were sold, verifiable documentation can be from any time from harvest through the time of sale. Generally, the crop quality loss must have occurred in a county that received a qualifying Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or Secretarial Disaster Designation because of one or more qualifying disaster events or conditions caused by them. Producers in counties not receiving a qualifying declaration are still eligible but they must provide supporting documentation showing how the crop losses were a direct result of a qualifying event.

• If an insured received a FSA WHIP+ payment based on production that was unmarketable, or a crop insurance indemnity payment based on the sale price vs. the crop insurance price, this production is not eligible for QLA.

Payment Calculations, Limitations, and Timing:
For non-forage crops with verifiable documentation of grading factors and the total dollar value loss due to quality, the following payment equation will be used.

QLA Payment = Total Dollar Value Loss on Affected Production x 0.7

For those without verifiable documentation of the total dollar value loss, but with verifiable documentation of grading factors, the following payment calculation will be used.

QLA Payment = Total Affected Production x County Average % Loss* x Average Market Price x 0.7 x 0.5

*The county average loss will be calculated by FSA based on the losses of producers qualifying with verifiable documentation of the total dollar loss if at least five eligible producers in the county submitted that documentation.

• Maximum of $125,000 per person or legal entity. Payments made to a Joint Venture or Partnership will not exceed $125,000 multiplied by the number of persons and legal entities that comprise the ownership of the joint operation.
• Payments will be issued once the application period ends. If the total amount of QLA payments exceed available program funding, the payments will be prorated.

Future Insurance Requirement:
All producers receiving QLA Program Payments are required to purchase crop insurance or NAP coverage for the next two crop years at the 60% coverage level or higher.