Farmers who are used to making their Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) elections by the traditional mid-March deadline will need to adjust their calendars this year. USDA has pushed back the enrollment window for both the 2026 and 2027 crop years, a delay tied to provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill. But the agency also added 30 million base acres, a move USDA says hasn’t been done in 20 years.
For the 2026 crop year, producers can make elections and enroll from September 16 through December 11, 2026. Enrollment for the 2027 crop year will follow closely behind, running from November 2, 2026, through March 15, 2027.
The delay stems in part from rule-making required by the reconciliation bill and the need to complete a base acreage update first. But this also gives farmers more clarity on which coverage will be a better fit for their farm since the sign-ups for 2026 are so late in the year.
Base Allocation Notifications
Landowners had until August 31, 2026, to review their base allocation summaries and take action, including correcting inaccurate information, designating subsequent acres, or opting out of adding base acres. Landowners did not lose base acres through the base allocation process itself.
For any landowner who did not notify FSA of changes, USDA says the base allocation summary on file is considered accurate and complete. However, an across-the-board adjustment still applies: FSA calculated the base allocation percentage reduction using all acreage reported as eligible, and new base acres will be automatically allocated to farms after applying a 3.69% reduction.
Base allocation notifications became available beginning September 16, 2026. Landowners can access their notifications online at fsa.usda.gov/arc-plc using a Login.gov account. Those without a Login.gov account can contact their local FSA county office to obtain their base allocation notification.
What It Means for Farmers
With enrollment now underway, we sat down with Brad Lubben, Extension associate professor and policy specialist, and Cory Walters, associate professor of agricultural economics, both at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, to break down what this timeline means at the farm level.
Typically, farmers are making ARC and PLC decisions under a cloud of uncertainty early in the year. This year, with enrollment significantly delayed, does the later timeline actually work in farmers’ favor?
“The budget reconciliation bill that passed in ’25 raised the safety net for producers, the commodity program safety net, and the crop insurance safety net as well. The commodity program safety net’s better for producers, and it’s higher than it was. It doesn’t necessarily keep track and keep pace with all the production costs, but it’s certainly an improved safety net.”
As for the 2025 crop year, Lubben says it was simply too late for USDA to let producers revisit their elections.
“USDA is simply going to pay the higher of ARC or PLC. That comes next month, as that payment on the ’25 crop comes in October ’26.”
He explains that the 2026 sign-up, which theoretically would have happened last spring, was held up for two reasons.
“The 2026 sign up was delayed in part because of rule making, in part because of the need to go through a base acreage update. We’ve added 30 million base acres to the mix. We haven’t replaced anything, but we’ve added new base acres.”
Now that the update is finished, he says, the timing may actually work in producers’ favor.
“And because it’s already harvest period, we already have at least a very good idea of what we think we’re gonna produce. It gives us a little bit better idea of what ARC or PLC really offers in terms of support,” Lubben adds.
Making Your Election
Once enrollment opens, producers can change their election and enroll in ARC-County (ARC-CO) or PLC, both of which offer crop-by-crop protection, or ARC-Individual (ARC-IC), which protects the entire farm rather than individual crops.
While changing a 2026 election is optional, producers are still required to sign a contract and enroll every year. That requirement comes with a wrinkle this time around: existing multi-year contracts expired in 2025, so producers now have the option to sign a new multi-year contract running from 2026 through 2031. Those who choose not to lock into a multi-year deal can instead enroll year by year, with the 2027 crop year window running from November 2, 2026, through March 15, 2027.
The December 11 deadline, though, is big. Producers who don’t submit their 2026 election by then won’t lose their program entirely, but their election will simply default to whatever was on file for 2025, and the farm will be ineligible for any 2026 program-year payments. It’s also worth noting that only landowners with a share interest in the farm can enroll in either program.
Covered commodities include barley, canola, large and small chickpeas, corn, crambe, flaxseed, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, dry peas, rapeseed, long grain rice, medium and short grain rice, safflower seed, seed cotton, sesame, soybeans, sunflower seed and wheat.
ARC or PLC: How Farmers Should Approach Their Decision
So if a farmer is sitting at the kitchen table trying to decide between ARC and PLC, what’s the simplest way to approach that decision? Walters says there’s nothing simple about it.
“Don’t make it simple,. Dig into it a little bit, understand it, own it,” Walters says. “But don’t focus on just what can pay. Focus on what will manage your risk if certain events happen. We’re a decade into this ARC-PLC, we should understand the basic components of it. That there’s prices on both sides, but the prices are determined a little differently. The ARC has the yields attached to it. But it’s not about just which one’s gonna give us the most money, it’s about which one is going to manage our risks that we’re gonna face. And each of us have a different level of risk that we are gonna face with our individual parameters, and we need to take that into account.”
He says it’s not about making the same election as your neighbor, or what someone else told you on a TikTok video. Walters points to a real example of what can go wrong when farmers chase the biggest payout instead of thinking through their own risk exposure.
“There was one a couple years ago, a neighbor back home — signed up for ARC County, couldn’t wait, because that was going to pay the most. He forgot one basic thing: he had like five base acres on an 80. And this has been relaxed in the current farm bill, but he should’ve been thinking more about how can I get over to the crop insurance side, the SCO and stuff that would pay on planted acres. So he totally missed the boat, because he was so focused on just one parameter, and what will pay, that he missed the bigger picture. So I’d step back at the kitchen table, look at the bigger picture.”
The Input Cost Side of the Equation
With rising input costs, from diesel to fertilizer, the cost side of the equation remains elevated for farmers, outpacing any gains in commodities prices. Does today’s environment change how farmers should approach risk management compared to a few years ago? Walters says yes.
“Oh, we’re feeling that right now, how we’re going to restrategize our conditions that we’re facing with all the inputs and outputs,” Walters says. “While we know diesel is clearly an input into producing crops, we also have to be cognizant that our oil seeds go to the biofuel market, and we can increase the demand of that, then our crop prices can also turn around and come higher. But that’s a much more long-term strategy.”
Walters says that means rethinking cash management altogether.
“We have to rethink our strategy on how we’re gonna manage all of this money that’s coming and going, is it going be infrastructure? Are we gonna pre-buy fuel? We’ll be thinking about it. Change it up. It’s not going to be the same as it was,” says Walters.
USDA says for more information on ARC and PLC, farmers should visit the ARC and PLC webpage or contact your local FSA County Office.
