Federal Farm Program Acreage Dimension Changes

The White House recently made changes to how acreage dimensions are being reported for USDA programs, Farm Service Agency, Acting Deputy Administrator John Burge explains what is behind the reasons for the adjustments.

“There's really two or three different things that a producer is interested in if they're contemplating entering into agriculture. One is financing. The second is risk management, and then the third is being able to ensure that your marketplace is solid. The best way to gain entry into our programs, whether it's risk management or finance or disaster payments, is to utilize an acreage report in order to do that, acreage reports have been limited in space, geographic footprint for some time, and we took a step as a result of our work with urban agriculture cooperators that we have agreements with, and also the urban agriculture advisory committee in order to take down the opportunity for acreage reporting to a millionth of an acre. This is just a step where we can help to accommodate some of those smaller, innovative producers. This also would help us work with the vertical farming help capture the plant inventory through multi level planting.”

Berge adds that the adjustments will help the FSA to evolve programs for the future.

“And gives us sort of a toehold to then go to the next iteration of some of the improvements that we'd like to make, particularly in the space of risk management through a non-insured Disaster Assistance Program.”

The Farm Service agency's John Berge.