Landowners have until the end of August to take stock of their farms' base acres under the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs and consider potential increases during a review period announced by the Agriculture Department.

USDA's Farm Service Agency will begin notifying landowners by mail that they can review their operations for potential base acreage updates on June 1 as they prepare to enroll in ARC and PLC from the 2026 crop year onward, according to an agency press release Tuesday. 

Acreage eligible for the base acre update must have been planted or was prevented from being planted with a covered commodity on the farm from the 2019 through 2023 crop years. There are 22 covered commodities, including major row crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, grain sorghum, seed cotton, rice, and peanuts, according to FSA's website. 

Lawmakers opened up room for an additional 30 million base acres under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress last year. Base acreage is historic, crop-specific acreage used to calculate eligibility and payments under commodity title programs like ARC and PLC. 

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This is the first chance the agency has had to update base acres since 2002, FSA Administrator Bill Beam said in the release.

"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 since the last time we revisited base allocations," he said. 

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.

An analysis released by University of Illinois economists last July suggests states in the Plains and Midwest are likely to add the largest number of new base acres in the update. They also found states with substantial peanut and rice base acres will likely receive larger payments, since those crops tend to see higher per-acre payments than other crops. 

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