By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

This year, farmers across the nation will have the opportunity to add farm bill safety net coverage to cropland that has previously been uncovered thanks to a provision in HR 1, also called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The legislation gives the Farm Service Agency (FSA) authority to add up to 30 million base acres to the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs for the 2026 crop year.

Richard Fordyce, undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network FSA is finalizing its “history dig” as it prepares to allocate the new base acres.

“What they’re looking for are those eligible commodities and were they planted anytime between 2019 and 2023?” Fordyce said. “Once the history dig comes up, then we know what is eligible. I’m not going to say all, but most farms already have base acres in those crops. There’s a potential that you could see an addition to base acres that you currently have in a specific crop, or if your farming operation has changed and you’re now growing something different that you hadn’t historically grown, then there’s opportunities for those base acres to increase, as well.”

The base acre total on a farm cannot exceed the number of acres planted.

After FSA has identified farms that are eligible for additional base acres, Fordyce said those base acres will be distributed in a fair and equal manner.

It will not be done on a first-come, first-served application basis. Landowners will be notified of the opportunity to change their base acres.

“If this farm, for example, is leased, that notification will not go to the producer or to the operator who’s leasing that farm. It’ll go to the landowner,” Fordyce said. “One of the things that I’ve been encouraging folks to do as an operator is to stay in contact with your landlord, making sure that they’re aware that they’re going to get this notification of the base acre change.”

There is an option to opt out of the change in base acres.

If the U.S. Department of Agriculture over-assigns too many base acres, there will be an across-the-board proration to ensure the country is at only 30 million additional base acres.

As for the timing, Fordyce said they hope to have all of the administrative work done by late summer.

“Then, we’ll have the opportunity for ARC and PLC elections. Now, most people are going to say, ‘What crop year am I making elections for?’ Well, this is going to be a little bit of an anomaly this year,” Fordyce said. “You actually will be making your ARC and PLC elections for the 2026 crop, and that’ll happen after the base acre distribution. As you can imagine, it’ll probably be August, September when we’re going to have folks making those elections for the 2026 crop.”

For some Texans, their crop will already be harvested by that time, but Fordyce said it is just the way FSA has to do it this year.

“We’ll get back into more of a regular ARC and PLC election signup cycle after the crop year of 2026,” Fordyce said.