It Doesn't Take Much of a Yield Hit to Max Out ARC-CO
We work up the numbers for all 99 Iowa Counties
A reader reached out to me to find out my updated estimates for Marshal and Tama County, Iowa 2025 corn ARC-CO payments. We have RMA final yields and final FSA yields should be close to those yields. I walked through how little yield loss it takes to push ARC-CO to its maximum payment for 2025 corn. Attached is a spreadsheet with a 2025 ARC-CO and PLC estimate for all 99 Iowa corn counties. Let me start with Marshall County, then zoom out.
Take Marshall County. Its 2025 corn ARC-CO benchmark yield is 235.89 bushels, and the benchmark price is $5.03, for benchmark revenue of $1,186.53 per acre. Under OBBBA, the revenue guarantee is now 90% of that — $1,067.88 — and the maximum payment is capped at 12%, or about $142 per acre. ARC-CO pays the difference between the guarantee and actual county revenue (county yield times the marketing-year price), up to that cap.
The projected market-year average (MYA) price is $4.05, well below the $5.03 benchmark. That price drop alone does most of the work. Even at the full benchmark yield, county revenue is only about $955, so ARC-CO already owes roughly $113 per acre. Shave the yield a little and it climbs fast:
235 bushels → $116
230 bushels → $136
225 bushels → $142 (capped)
