By MIDAS Press Team
The transition to the future MIDAS system will bring many updates to Farm Records, resulting from the full integration of GIS and Farm Records. Because Farm Records and GIS will no longer be two separate systems, there will be no need to update the cropland in Farm Records after editing a CLU in GIS. Upon hitting “save” to complete CLU edits, the cropland and effective DCP cropland for the farm will be automatically updated with the newly calculated acreage.
This new integration is powerful stuff. You’ll no longer be able to manually override the calculated cropland. Because the farmland and cropland for a farm will be calculated by the computer as the sum of all the acreages for the individual CLU’s (fields), the only way to change the farmland or cropland for a farm would be to change at least one CLU. That CLU change could be a change to the CLU boundary or it could be a change to an attribute of the CLU, such as changing the CLU classification from cropland to non-cropland.
The new integration plays an important role in the reconstitution process as well. Within MIDAS, GIS is used to initiate the reconstitution process. To split a tract, GIS is used to select which fields will belong to the new tract. Once the fields are selected, the next steps are to divide any associated bases, CRP reductions, etc. Tract combinations, farm divisions and farm combinations work in the same way using GIS to select the tracts, or farms that will be involved in the reconstitution.
For a typical county FSA office, this integration means that there will no longer be separate individuals handling GIS, Farm Records, and reconstitutions. To move forward with the new system, there will need to be a greater understanding of these processes and how each one affects the others.
