Ag News

Landowners have until Aug. 31 to update base acres for ARC/PLC

The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) has announced eligible landowners have until Aug. 31 to review and consider base acre increases on farms enrolled in the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs, as authorized by provisions included in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The act provides landowners with the opportunity to update and increase base acres for Title 1 crops, such as cotton, peanuts, corn, soybeans, wheat, sorghum, barley, oats and more, in preparation for enrollment in ARC and PLC beginning with the 2026 and future crop years. Nationwide, up to 30 million new base acres can be added by eligible farms. 

ARC and PLC are cornerstone commodity safety net programs that provide financial protection to farmers when market prices or revenues decline. These programs help producers manage risk and maintain the economic viability of their operations amid challenging market and weather conditions.

FSA began notifying eligible landowners by direct mail that base allocation summaries outlining potential base acre updates were made available for review beginning June 1. These summaries can be accessed online at https://fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc using a Login.gov account.

Landowners who do not currently have a Login.gov account are encouraged to contact their local FSA county office to obtain their Base Allocation Summary. The base allocation summary should be reviewed and any necessary actions completed by Aug. 31. 

Farm operators often maintain detailed historical planting records. Early communication between landowners and farm operators will ensure the base allocation summary is accurate and all necessary actions are completed by the deadline.

“If you’re a farm operator on land you rent, you need to talk to your landowner and let them know the base allocation notification is coming and to be on the lookout for it,” said USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production & Conservation Richard Fordyce said in an interview with a GFB News reporter May 21.

To be eligible for new base acres, a current covered commodity must have been planted or prevented from being planted on the farm during the 2019 through 2023 crop years. The farm’s average planted and prevented planted acres during that period must exceed the total existing base acres for all covered commodities in effect on Sept. 30, 2024, excluding unassigned base acres.

FSA farm total base acres cannot exceed the farm’s total cropland acres. If eligible requests exceed the nationwide cap of 30 million acres, USDA will apply an across-the-board, prorated reduction to all approved new base acres.

“I haven’t seen the results of the historical dig that USDA staff did regarding total number of base acres on file for 2019-2023, but I am anticipating there will be more than 30 million acres that the program is capped at,” Fordyce said. “If there are more [than 30 million acres], we’ll prorate those across all crops and geographically, so no one is treated unfairly.”

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