Several major conservation programs have been secured through the end of the decade, while uncertainty surrounds the Conservation Reserve Program. Because the CRP is only extended through September, thousands of acres across the country are at a crossroads of either staying retired or returning to active production. Natalie Loduca, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois, talked about some policy changes related to CRP.
“EQIP, RCPP, CSP, those have all been reauthorized until 2031, so those, for right now, stand in place. CRP was extended until September 2026, so currently it’s in an uncertain state. After September 2026, it’s uncertain whether that will move forward, given that the farm bill is now kind of split up, I’m not sure if renegotiations will be able to occur regarding that.”
She talked about the potential long-term effects of no CRP after September.
“Farmers that are currently enrolled or have contracts, those contracts should be honored. You have a contract with the government, so my understanding is they need to honor those payments for the remainder of your contract, but if your contract expires, I don’t know if you’ll be able to renew as a farmer or enroll new acres. And so, the recent numbers that I have looked at were that, as of September 2025, about 800,000 acres were enrolled in CRP, and so those potentially will come out of those contracts on a rolling basis. They’re generally 10-to-15-year contracts, so it could take a while for all of those to expire. And over the past five years, there’s been an average of $170 million paid out annually to CRP payments. So, in terms of the long run, if CRP is not extended or reauthorized again, we’re going to see, obviously, those payments disappear, and, slowly, those acres are going to come out of those programs.”
Farmers would have decisions to make about those acres.
“What the farmers do with those acres moving forward, we’ll have to see. A lot of times, CRP acreage is on marginal land, land prone to flooding, so if farmers want to put those back into production, that will obviously have additional impacts potentially on prices moving forward. And so, we’re going to have to wait and see, ultimately, if it’s extended, and what the final outcomes will be.”