The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, makes a landmark change to federal farm programs. For the first time since the 2014 Farm Bill, farmers will have the opportunity to expand their base acres under the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs. Beginning with the 2026 crop year, USDA will allocate up to 30 million new base acres nationwide.

This change carries particular significance for Kentucky. Many farms across the state have consistently planted more acres in recent years than their existing base acreage reflects (Gardner, 2024). By tying new base allocations to more recent planting history, the law ensures that additional acres in Kentucky will now be eligible for ARC and PLC benefits, strengthening the state’s farm safety net.

Preliminary projections suggest Kentucky could see substantial gains. Depending on USDA’s final implementation rules, the state could add between 470,000 and 565,000 corn base acres, 570,000 to 677,000 soybean base acres, and 145,000 to 153,000 wheat base acres. Among these, soybeans are positioned to benefit the most, with Kentucky ranking among the top states nationally for new soybean base acreage (Wongpiyabovorn & Plastina, 2025).

Without a base acre adjustment, many of the proposed farm bill enhancements—including higher reference prices—would provide little or no added benefit in Kentucky (Gardner, Biram, and Loy, 2024). Counties with large planted acres but relatively low base acres would continue to miss out on payments, leaving much of the state’s production unprotected. This problem has been especially acute where land has transitioned from pasture into cropland, leaving producers without base acres tied to their actual planting history. By aligning base acres with recent planting records, the OBBBA ensures that Kentucky farmers—including those on newly converted cropland—can capture the full value of future farm bill improvements.

Updating base acres will be a one-time, voluntary process, and USDA’s Farm Service Agency is expected to publish the rules ahead of the 2026 crop year (Wongpiyabovorn & Plastina, 2025). The update will be based on the five-year average of planted, failed, and prevented acres from 2019 to 2023, along with adjustments for noncovered crops. Because enrollment will not happen automatically, producers will need to work with FSA to verify their records and document their acreage history. This makes the upcoming sign-up a unique opportunity to align base acres with recent planting patterns and strengthen farm program protection in Kentucky.

Figure 1: Additional Corn Base Acres in Kentucky (Interactive Map Link)

Figure 2: Additional Soybean Base Acres in Kentucky (Interactive Map Link)

Figure 3: Additional Wheat Base Acres in Kentucky (Interactive Map Link)

Table 1: Additional Base Acres by County (All Crops)

CORN, SOYBEANS, WHEAT; sorted by Total

Citations:

Gardner, Grant; Biram, Hunter D.; Loy, Ryan. “Where Is the Base? Farm Bill Enhancements Could Be Negligible Without a Base Acre Update.” Economic & Policy Update, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, October 31, 2024.

Wongpiyabovorn, O., & Plastina, A. (2025). Additional Base Acres for ARC and PLC. RaFF Policy Brief 2025-7(2), Rural & Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center, University of Missouri.

Recommended Citation Format:                                                              

Gardner, G., Wongpiyabovorn, O., and Plastina, A. “More Base Acres, More Protection.” Economics and Policy Update 25:10, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky, October 31, 2025.

Author(s) Contact Information:

Grant Gardner | grant.gardner@uky.edu 

Author(s): Grant Gardner, Oranuch Wongpiyabovorn, and Alejandro Plastina.