Thirty million new base acres in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill won’t be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, the USDA is electing to distribute those acres in a more organized way. USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Richard Fordyce said producers don’t need to rush to their FSA office for the new Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) base acres.
Fordyce said this will keep farmers from having to stake their claim on base acres.
Those acres will be distributed based on recent planting history for the 22 covered commodities.
The current 274 million base acres, including those that went unassigned, won’t change. However, the increase does mean that over 300 million acres of covered crops will now be eligible for ARC and PLC payments.
