7 U.S.C. § 8712 — Payment yields

(a) Establishment and purpose. To make direct and counter-cyclical payments under this subchapter, the Secretary must establish a yield for each farm for a designated oilseed or eligible pulse crop^* if section 7912 did not establish one. (b) Payment yields. (1) For each such crop, the Secretary must find the farm’s average yield per planted acre for the 1998–2001 crop years, leaving out a year in which the farm planted zero acres of that crop. (2)(A) The farm’s payment yield^* equals: (i) that average farm yield, multiplied by (ii) the national average yield for the crop in 1981–1985 divided by the national average yield for the crop in 1998–2001. (B) If national-average information is unavailable, the Secretary must use information the Secretary finds fair and equitable to establish it. (3) If the farm’s yield in any 1998–2001 year was below 75 percent of the county yield, the Secretary must use 75 percent of the county yield for that year when calculating the average. (4) If historical yield data is unavailable, the Secretary must use the dry-pea ratio from paragraph (2)(A)(ii), as the Secretary finds fair and equitable, to calculate yields for these crops.