Roger Bernard, Farm Journal Policy & Washington Editor

The level of acreage enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) has now dropped below the legislatively mandated cap of 32 million acres, according to the latest update from USDA.

As of Oct. 31, USDA data shows that 31.119 million acres of land are under contract in the long-term conservation program, down from 33.721 million acres as of Sept. 30, 2009. The shift resulted as 2.782 million acres of ground expired from the program (2.729 million acres that had been enrolled via the general CRP signup process and 53,000 acres that had been enrolled via the continuous CRP process) and new contracts under the continuous CRP signup totaling 180,523 acres started October 1.

Of the 3.783 million acres enrolled via the general signup that were originally scheduled to expire as of Sept. 30, 2009, a total of 2.729 million of those acres actually exited the program. Some recent reports had put the level of acreage exiting the program at 3.4 million, but the USDA data confirms that tally was too high.

Extension results. In May 2009, USDA announced an effort to offer contract extensions of three or five years to those holding contracts that were to expire Sept. 30, 2009. Of the 1.508 million offered the extensions, 70% or 1.054 million accepted the extensions. Those holding contracts on 454,648 acres chose not to take USDA up on the extension offer.

States with the most acres that exited the program as of Sept. 30, 2009, were: