The level of acreage enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) as of October is at 20.76 million acres, down from 21.9 million acres as of September. This is a smaller total than had been expected based on the combination of contract expirations and new enrollments under the most recent general CRP signup and the continuous CRP efforts. Expectation had been that the combination of contract expirations and new enrollments would have put acreage at around 21.6 million acres.
Based on data from USDA, the difference appears to be that not all the acres approved for enrollment under the general signup 54 and the CRP Grasslands signup were actually enrolled. USDA said that 3.4 million acres had been approved for enrollment via the general signup, but through October, only 2.87 million acres had been enrolled. Of the 1.2 million acres that had been approved for enrollment in the CRP Grasslands effort, only 910,266 acres had been enrolled through October.
It is not clear if the smaller-than-expected acreage enrollments from the general signup and the Grasslands effort reflects delayed reporting of contracts starting or whether growers actually opted not to follow through with their enrollment intentions.