US farmers have until 11 December to choose between Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) for the 2026 crop year, and a free online decision aid from the Texas A&M Agricultural and Food Policy Center (AFPC) has been updated to help them decide.

USDA opened the election and enrolment period on 16 September, later than usual, said AFPC co-director Bart Fischer, because of the time needed to implement the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, which added an estimated 30 million base acres nationwide. For 2025 Congress simply paid producers the higher of the two programmes, and those payments begin arriving in October. Sign-up for the 2027 crop year runs from 2 November to 15 March 2027.

Fischer said the late start helps growers, because much of the 2026 crop is already harvested and they know more about their yields. Prices remain the uncertainty, since both programmes pay on marketing-year average prices over the 12 months after harvest.

The tool compares expected payments under PLC and ARC-County from a farm's base acres, PLC yields and irrigation share, using USDA's price forecasts or the grower's own, and shows probability charts for each option. A separate Excel tool covers ARC-Individual. Growers need the base-acre and yield figures on their FSA-156EZ form. "This is our newest and most user-friendly version yet," said AFPC co-director Joe Outlaw. The report was written by Adam Russell.

Photo: Tim McCabe, USDA NRCS / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: Farm Progress