USDA Announces CRP Payments; Acreage Cap Looms

Payments totaling nearly $1.6 billion under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) have been issued, according to USDA, on nearly 24 million acres of ground in the program. Sources, however, signal the 24-million-acre cap on the program for Fiscal 2017 looms as a factor ahead for the program.Data from USDA at the end of August indicated that the agency enrolled 411,000 acres of ground into the program under the last general signup held, 101,000 acres under the new CRP-Grasslands effort and it showed 836,000 acres had been enrolled during Fiscal 2016 under the continuous signup effort.However, in announcing the CRP payments, USDA said the level of acres enrolled via the continuous signup for Fiscal 2016 was 1.3 million acres, about double the Fiscal 2015 level.Given that there were 23.9 million acres in the program as Fiscal 2016 wound down, with new entries that have contract starts of Fiscal 2017 via the general signup and grassland effort, plus 1.67 million acres of contracts maturing, sources did not provide a specific total of how much ground is now in the CRP. But, that level is "pretty close" to the 24 million acre limit that is in place for Fiscal 2017, one source advised.USDA data show contracts on 2.52 million acres of ground will mature as of September 30, 2017, freeing up space in the program. Of those, 1.98 million acres are from general signups and 540,000 are from continuous signups.