When CRP acreage is released by the FSA, base acres are returned as they were prior to entry into the CRP program.

In the base acre reallocation tool, wheat might be the planted crop.  Soybeans would be listed as the subsequent crop, reflecting a second crop on that acreage. If you had a 100 acre wheat base, and a 0 acre soybean base, the calculator reallocates the base (if desired) as 50 acres for wheat and 50 acres for soybeans. Your choice whether to reallocate depends on your expecations for more payment benefits from the wheat and soybean combination than just the wheat base.

As the owner of the land, the landowner also owns the base acres and payment yields associated with the land on that farm. By statute, the owner of the land makes the decisions for base acres and payment yields on those base acres.

Because all programs make payments on base acres, the decision to reallocate should take into consideration the relative values of the base acres (i.e., expected payments) under different program scenarios. Future planting decisions might also impact the decision to reallocate. The decision, however, is for the landowner.

Reallocation is determined by the ratio of planted acres to a program crop compared to the planted acres of all other program crops for the 2009 to 2012 crop years. Because all programs make payments on base acres, the decision to reallocate should take into consideration the relative values of the base acres (i.e. expected payments) under different program scenarios. This decision would likely depend on the value of corn base as compared to the value of the other covered commodities with base acres (and planted 2009 to 2012) on the farm.

All programs make payments on a percentage of the base acres on the farm, no program makes payments on the actual planted acres. ARC-IC calculations are based on actual and historical farm yields. The actual planted acres on the farm in the crop year are used to weight the revenue numbers in the calculation. In that way, actual yields and planted acres do impact the program and payment calculations for ARC-IC. By comparison, ARC-CO uses actual county average yields and PLC uses the program or payment yields to calculate payments.