USDA is beginning the largest expansion of commodity program base acres in more than two decades. The addition of 30 million acres eligible for Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage is expected to increase support for farmers nationwide. USDA Undersecretary Richard Fordyce explains how the new acres were calculated and which regions stand to benefit the most.
“I think it’s great news. I was super happy to kind of see where we came out from that total. And because the total universe of eligible acres was not much more than 30 million, we had to do a prorated reduction, but it was only at 3.69%. So as an example, if you had 100 acres of eligible new base, we had to reduce that by 3.69. So you would have 96.31 acres of that total 100 acre eligibility. So not much of a reduction. So I think that’s really good news.”
Fordyce says some states saw particularly large gains because of major changes in cropping patterns over the last 20 years.
“So we did see some states that had pretty significant increases: North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska. I think it had to do with a couple of things. One was areas of the country where their cropping systems have changed. It’s been over 20 years since we’ve added any additional base acres. When we look at North Dakota, for example, 20 years ago, a lot of dry land wheat, cereal grains; now, that state grows a lot of corn and soybeans. And so I think that’s one of the reasons. And then in some other states, like a dairy heavy state, for example. Maybe that farm, all the production from that farm actually went into feeding the dairy herd or some livestock operation. And so maybe those acres had not been captured back 20 years plus ago. But now with a lot of focus on acreage reporting related to other kind of programs, those farms had been reporting those acres.”
Because this is the first base-acre update in decades, Fordyce says several organizations are expected to study the effect on farm profitability and rural economies.
“The Economic Research Service, the Agricultural Research Service here at USDA will do an analysis on what that impact is to farms, but also to rural communities because farms are more profitable, their rural community seems to do better. And then we also, there’s a number, you know, University of Missouri, Texas A&M University, and the groups in those land grant universities do a lot of economic analysis and what is the impact to USDA programs on farm profitability. So, I would say that there will be some of those studies coming out after we’re able to incorporate the additional 30 million acres. What does that look like from a farm profitability standpoint?”
Undersecretary Richard Fordyce along with us. He reminds producers that the 30 million new base acres will first apply to the 2026 crop, not the ARC and PLC payments scheduled to go out this October. If you’ve got questions, reach out to your local FSA office or crop insurance agent.