Planting Flexibility and Current US Crop Acres

Aug 25, 2022

By Carl Zulauf
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics
Ohio State University

Nick Paulson and Gary Schnitkey et.al
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois

Since the 1996 farm bill, the US farm safety net has given farmers the freedom to not plant program base acres and to plant a crop’s base acres to another crop, with a few restrictions related to fruits and vegetables. This article documents that planting flexibility has become an important feature of US farming and its safety net.

Base Acre Decisions

According to data supplied by USDA, FSA (US Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency); during the 2018 farm bill farmers have, on average, planted covered commodities on 85% or 220 million out of 259 million base acres enrolled in commodity programs (see Figure 1). This high of a share is not surprising since covered commodities include the large acreage US field crops. Non-program commodities were planted on 8% (20 million) of enrolled base acres while 4% (10 million) were in grass and 2% (5 million) were idle.

Base Acre Decisions

Covered Commodity Decisions

For most individual program commodities, planted and base acres diverge considerably (see Data Note). Only for corn, seed cotton, and sunflowers are average acres planted under the 2018 farm bill within 25% of base acres enrolled in crop year 2021 commodity programs. Planted acres are more than twice base acres for rapeseed, mustard, chickpeas, dry peas, and lentils; and are at least 25% less than base acres for wheat, sorghum, peanuts, rice, and barley. In terms of number of acres, the two extreme differences are 18 million fewer planted than base acres for wheat and 29 million more planted than base acres for soybeans. 2021 base acres are from the ARC/PLC program data file maintained by USDA, FSA while planted acres for 2019 – 2021 are from the Quick Stats data file maintained by USDA, NASS (National Agricultural Statistical Service).

Covered Commodity Decisions

Summary Observations

Planting flexibility has become an important feature of US farming and its safety net. For only three covered program commodities (corn, seed cotton, sunflowers) are planted acres within 25% of base acres.

Farmers have taken advantage of planting flexibility to adjust planted acres to changing private market returns across crops. For example, since 1996, acres of the two largest acreage US field crops, corn and soybeans, have increased by over 10 million. In contrast, acres of the third largest field crop, wheat, have declined by over 20 million.

Given dynamic supply and demand for crops, planting flexibility is a desired farm policy feature and important to keeping US agriculture competitive.

Source : illinois.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”