Barley Estimators Are Up — and PLC Doesn’t Matter This Year
We add in barley spreadsheets for the key states
I’ve added 2025 barley ARC-CO versus PLC spreadsheets to the set, now covering Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming. They work just like the corn, soybean, and wheat files — but barley comes with one big simplification you’ll want to know up front.
There is no PLC payment for barley in 2025. The final market-year average price came in at $5.46, which sits just above the $5.45 effective reference price. When the MYA is at or above the effective reference, PLC pays zero — and that’s exactly where barley landed. So the PLC column is on the sheet only for consistency with the other crops. You can ignore it. It shows $0, and nothing you type will change that.
That means your whole barley story is ARC-CO. On the Your Fields tab, you only need two things: pick your county and enter your base acres. The sheet pulls that county’s ARC-CO figure and multiplies by your acres for an estimated payment. There’s a PLC yield column for the sake of matching the other files, but it’s optional and has no effect on barley — leave it blank.
Because ARC-CO is a revenue program, it pays where 2025 county yields fell short of the benchmark. That varies a lot by state. Washington barley is the standout — ARC-CO averages around $41 an acre, with nearly every county maxing out at the cap. Montana and Oregon are also strong. On the other end, a good crop kept ARC-CO quiet across much of Minnesota, where the statewide average is close to nothing. Your own county is what matters, so pull it up.
Two reminders that carry over from the other crops. First, for 2025 you don’t elect — you automatically receive the higher of ARC-CO or PLC, and since PLC is zero here, that’s simply ARC-CO. Second, don’t forget the back-end haircuts when you budget: these figures are already at the 85% factor, but your actual check still gets reduced about 5.7% for sequestration, and everything stays under the payment limit.
Pull up your state, drop in your counties and acres, and you’ll have your 2025 barley read in a minute or two. If your state isn’t posted yet, send me a note.
Here are the spreadsheets which are for paid subscribers only.
