By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

This year, farmers across the nation 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.

“This is the first chance for adding base acres since 2022,” FSA Administrator Bill Beam said. “These base acre improvements will help strengthen the farm safety net for producers across the country and help them better manage risk by providing greater flexibility for operations that have expanded or diversified.”

Eligible landowners are being notified by mail of potential base acre updates for their farms. Landowners have until Aug. 31 to review potential base acre increases.

“If a farm 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,” Richard Fordyce, undersecretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “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.”

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

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

Base allocation summaries are available to those with a Login.gov account on fsa.usda.gov/ARC-PLC.

Farmers without a Login.gov account should contact their local FSA office for a base allocation summary before Aug. 31 to review potential new base acre allocations.

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.

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. 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.

For more information, farmers should contact their local FSA county office or visit U.S. Department of Agriculture online at fsa.usda.gov/state-offices.