Share of Direct Payment Base Acres enrolled in ACRE

The 2008 Farm Act established a new program that offered producers an alternative to the existing Direct and Countercyclical Program (DCP). Beginning in 2009, producers with eligible historical production (base acres) of corn and other program crops could enroll those base acres in the new Average Crop Revenue Election (ACRE) Program. ACRE participants agreed to reduced DCP payments. In return, they received ACRE payments if current market revenue (what the producer receives from selling the harvested crop) falls below both State- and farm-level guarantees based on planted yields and national market prices. Enrollment in the new program was not widespread-in only 170 counties were more than 30 percent of base acres enrolled in ACRE. But participation was higher in some parts of Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Washington, where more than a third of all counties with ACRE enrollment above 30 percent of base acres were located. This map is found in the ERS Data Set, The Farm Program Atlas, December 2011.

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