§8711 Base Acres

Summary

The Agriculture Secretary must adjust a farm’s base acres for program crops when certain changes happen. Adjustments are required if land leaves a conservation reserve contract (including contracts that ended or were ended between October 1, 2007 and the law’s enactment), cropland is released from such a contract, a producer has eligible pulse acreage, or the Secretary adds eligible oilseed acreage. For the first crop year after land comes out of a conservation contract, the farm owner must choose either the farm program payments for the added acres or a prorated conservation payment for those acres, but not both. If the total of a farm’s base acres plus other counted acreage is more than the farm’s actual cropland, the Secretary must cut base acres for one or more covered commodities or peanuts so the total does not exceed real cropland. Counted acreage includes peanut base acres, land in conservation programs (like CRP or WRP), acreage paid not to produce, and eligible pulse or newly designated oilseed acres. The owner can pick which crop base acres to reduce. Double-cropped land is treated as an exception. Owners may permanently reduce base acres anytime. The Secretary must also reduce base acres if land is subdivided and developed for nonfarming uses unless the owner shows it’s still farmed or will return to farming, and must report yearly to Congress on those actions. Farms with 10 or fewer base acres cannot get direct, counter-cyclical, or ACRE payments unless owned by socially disadvantaged or limited-resource farmers; the Secretary must collect separate data and study effects on fruit and vegetable supply and price. Those payment limits and reporting did not apply for the 2008 crop year.