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University of Wisconsin develops CFAP assistance tool for farmers

A University of Wisconsin economist says the CFAP program will help pay for some forage crops using a grain equivalent, but there are exceptions. “If you have sorghum grown for grain, it will be covered. And, if you did happen to make that grain into silage because of weather or just conditions at the end of the year, that will be usable as sorghum for grain, but if you planted sorghum for forage or a sorghum-sudangrass hybrid, then that won’t be covered.”

Paul Mitchell with the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics tells Brownfield there are also tricky requirements around specialty crops. “Potatoes, onions, and apples, unless you can show you’ve had losses (where) you shipped it and it wasn’t sold because of COVID-19 disruptions, but very few farmers are going to.”

Mitchell and the University of Wisconsin staff have created a web tool to help farmers calculate CFAP payments including estimating tools for forage values, stored tonnage, and other guides online, here.