Key Takeaways
- H.R. 1 allows eligible farms to voluntarily add base acres as provisions allow up to 30 million new base acres to be allocated to farms that have historically produced program crops but don’t currently have base acres.
- A mandatory base acre update would hurt farmers across the country, costing the farm economy billions in lost risk management support and eliminating any base acre gains for farmers under H.R.1.
- By redistributing and eliminating base acres among farms, commodities, counties and states, it would create new divisions within agriculture and make passage of a new farm bill more difficult, if not impossible.
- A mandatory base acre update would reduce projected commodity program benefits by $2.24 billion annually, or approximately $18 billion from fiscal years 2029 through 2036, with farmers in every state losing risk management support.
As the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry prepares to mark up the farm bill (also known as The Agricultural Act of 2026), debate over whether to require a mandatory base acre update has resurfaced.
Farm programs such as Agriculture Risk Coverage-County (ARC-CO) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) use base acres to determine program payments. Base acres reflect a farm’s historical planting rather than what is planted in the current crop year. This decoupling allows farmers to respond to market signals, weather conditions and agronomic needs without government payments influencing annual planting decisions.
However, production has shifted considerably since many base acres were established. Some farms now produce covered commodities on land with little or no base, while others maintain base for crops that remain part of a larger and more diverse crop rotation.
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