Southern Ag Today

Category: Policy

  • Southern States Share of Major Crop Bases

    Southern States Share of Major Crop Bases

    For the 2021 program year, the U.S. had a total of 246,601,268 enrolled base acres across 23 covered commodities, ranging from feed and food grains to various major and minor oilseeds and seed cotton.  The 13 Southern States (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia) accounted for 50,459,543 acres or 20 percent of the U.S. total.  

    Looking at enrolled crop bases for the 2021 program year, the South accounted for a relatively low percentage of corn and soybean bases (9% and 14%, respectively).  The Southern States accounted for over 90 percent of seed cotton, long grain rice, and peanut base acres, which makes sense as these three commodities are generally grown in warmer climates and are often referred to as “Southern crops”.  While the share of wheat base in the Southern States was only 24 percent of the U.S. total, the 14,734,976 acres of wheat base represented the largest raw number of base acres of any single crop in the 13-state region.

    Table 1. Enrolled Base Acres for the 2021 Program Year.

    Base AcresCornSoybeansSeed CottonLong Grain RiceWheatGrain SorghumPeanuts
    13 Southern States7,996,1877,186,91310,483,8663,487,44014,734,9763,563,1672,355,027
    U.S. Total92,307,69752,245,51611,546,3463,790,09561,910,8418,501,7572,404,116
    13 States as % of Total9%14%91%92%24%42%98%
    Source: USDA/FSA.  Available at:  https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/arcplc_program/arcplc-program-data/index

    These seven crops accounted for 49,807,514 of the 13 Southern State total of 50,459,543 base acres (or 98.7 percent), indicating there are very few enrolled base acres of other covered commodities on farms located in the South.

    Outlaw, Joe, and J. Marc Raulston. “Southern States Share of Major Crop Bases.” Southern Ag Today 1(45.4). November 4, 2021. Permalink

  • CFAP 2.0 Payments Across the South

    CFAP 2.0 Payments Across the South

    Producers across the United States benefited from the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) 1.0 and CFAP 2.0 programs aimed at providing assistance for losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  CFAP 1.0 provided more than $10 billion in payments on over 600,000 applications.  CFAP 2.0 provided almost $14 billion in payments along with top-up payments for acreage based commodities totaling another $4.8 billion from over 900,000 approved applications.

    CFAP 2.0 provided broader coverage than the CFAP 1.0 program that limited eligibility to only those crops experiencing a 5 percent decline while focusing on unsold inventories from 2019, left out HRW wheat, and only protected livestock inventories on the farm as of January 15th, 2020.  

     CFAP 2.0 was widely accessed by producers across the South with the 13 southern states accounting for $3.7 billion or nearly 27 percent of the payments.  Soybeans, cattle, and sales commodities were the highest commodity categories in four states each, while corn was the highest in Kentucky.  Sales commodities include specialty crops, aquaculture, nursery crops and floriculture, and other commodities not included in the price trigger and flat-rate payment categories.

    CFAP 2.0 payments across the 13 southern states

    Outlaw, Joe, and J. Marc Raulston. “CFAP 2.0 Payments Across the South.” Southern Ag Today 1(43.4). October 21, 2021. Permalink