Base Acre Updating in the Next Farm Bill

Updating base acres will again receive attention in upcoming farm bill deliberations. Both the House and Senate committees have released proposals that included limited updates targeted at producers with no base acres or limited resource farmers. Those proposals would aid a subset of producers while not addressing two larger issues associated with updating: 1. base acres of individual program crop do not match actual planted acres on farms. Even on farms that have bases acres, base acres of individual crops can vary substantially from how they are planted, and 2. total of all base acres does not match total plantings of program crops on farms. Even on farms that have base acres, total acres planted to program crops can differ notably from total base acres on the farm, with many farms having substantially higher planted acres than base acres.