800 326 9054The Agriculture Department has finalized some revisions to two major farm commodity programs, including rules for adding new base acres, but signup for the programs won’t be scheduled until after planting season at the earliest, according to a top USDA official.
The changes, which take effect for 2026, include increases in reference prices for the Price Loss Coverage program and raising the Agriculture Risk Coverage program guarantee to 90% of the benchmark revenue.
A 61-page final rule to be published in the Federal Register on Monday makes those and other revisions to ARC, PLC and the Dairy Margin Coverage program that were required by the One Big Beautiful Act, passed by Congress in July.
Richard Fordyce, USDA’s undersecretary for farm production and conservation, said in an interview with Agri-Pulse that annual signup for DMC will start on Monday, but he had no timetable for enrollment in ARC and PLC for the 2026 crop year.
“We are going to have a signup period that is going to be certainly fair to producers (and) that will reflect the work … we’ve got to get done on the front end to get to the place where we can do that signup,” Fordyce said.
“By no means will the signup time frame put any producer in peril.”
Fordyce indicated that one issue delaying ARC and PLC enrollment is the workload in Farm Service Agency offices.
The rule being published on Monday indicates that the ARC and PLC enrollment could be delayed significantly: “Producers will know their 2026 production and yields before they decide whether to elect and subsequently enroll in ARC or PLC for the 2026 crop year.”
PLC triggers payments to producers when the average market price for a covered commodity falls below its reference price for that year. ARC payments are triggered when revenue falls below a five-year Olympic average.
The 2026-27 marketing year for corn and soybeans runs through August 2027.
Fordyce also didn’t have a timeframe for implementing the provision that allows enrollment of an additional 30 million base acres. However, the rule addressed a key issue – what kind of non-program crops could be eligible for program base.
Under the rule, acreage that had been planted to a wide range of non-program commodities would be eligible with the exception of tobacco, marijuana and cover crops, as well as land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. Under the law, acreage in trees, bushes and vines also is ineligible.
The 30 million in additional base acres will be calculated according to planting patterns from 2019 through 2023.
Non-program commodities covering up to 15% of a farm’s acreage could be eligible for base. The allowance for those non-covered commodities was intended to avoid penalizing farmers who have those crops in rotation with crops such as corn and soybeans, but it also can increase the program payments farmers will receive.
The rule says the additional base acres will be “automatically allocated to eligible farms, unless the owner requests not to receive additional base acres.”
The law also expands the types of farm entities that are eligible for farm programs, but Fordyce said that provision would be handled in a future rulemaking.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
*Sourced from Agri-Pulse.