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Young farmers want base acres changes

A group of young farmers is asking members of Congress to improve base acre limitations in the next farm bill.

Mississippi crop farmer Christian Good says he’s not eligible to enroll in current risk management programs because he does not meet base acre requirements.

“My recommendation would be to devise some way for young producers to build base without adopting a policy for mandatory base updates,” he says. “The House Agriculture Committee just recently marked up a farm bill provision that will allow producers a one-time option of building base on their current farming operation. For young farmers, this change would be monumental.”

Base acres are associated with farmland tracks and their landowners, which Good says are inaccessible for many new farmers.

During Tuesday’s U.S. Senate Ag Committee subcommittee hearing, Good also asked for updates to reference prices and for Congress to streamline the FSA loan application process.

Senator Debbie Stabenow says her proposed farm bill does allow new farmers to establish new base acres.

“We can talk about commodity payments in ARC and PLC, but if you don’t have base acres, you don’t have a chance to get that—so it doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “And right now the vast majority of what the House bill does goes to that and its unfortunately not paid for so we have to address that.”

Payments from the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) programs are paid on 85 percent of base acres established by Congress and not planted acres.

Recent analysis by the University of Illinois Farmdoc team finds voluntary updates to base acres without increasing the total base could increase federal spending by nearly five percent, or more than $2 billion, over the life of the farm bill.  Voluntary updates that also increase total base acres could increase spending by at least 10 percent, or $6.6 billion.

Economists say a mandatory update is needed to cause base acres to better reflect actual planted acres.