Farm Service Agency July 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This document requests input to help us improve services and reduce duplication of effort, including collecting information from the public. Specifically, the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services (FFAS) agencies including the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the Risk Management Agency (RMA) have been working on a joint, coordinated initiative to have a common U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) framework for producer's to report information to participate in certain USDA programs. FSA and RMA have been working in coordination with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) on the common reporting process. The USDA retrospective review request for information (RFI) published in the Federal Register on April 20, 2011, included the initiative to simplify and reduce the reporting burden on the public for submitting participation information for USDA programs, while simultaneously reducing our administrative and operating costs by sharing similar data across participating agencies. We believe the public, especially farmers, producers, ranchers, and the crop insurance industry who submit and use the information may have suggestions that may effectively reduce the burden of providing the information that USDA agencies require. Any resulting improvements to the processes will be within existing legislative authorities.