U.S. Farmers to Decrease Idle Acreage

U.S. farmers will leave 76 million acres of farmland unplanted this year, but appear to be gradually reducing the amount of land being idled under federal farm price support programs, a government report released Thursday showed.

The massive amount of land to be idled, more than equal in area to the Midwestern farm states of Illinois and Iowa, reflects an 83% farmer participation rate in the U.S. acreage limitation programs.

Farmers are idling around 54 million acres of cropland under the government’s 1988 set-aside programs, the Agriculture Department said in its preliminary report on 1988 farm program participation.

The remaining 22 million acres have been enrolled in the U.S. conservation program.

While the set-aside number is huge, it is down slightly from last year’s required set-aside of almost 60 million acres and participation rate of 87%. This could signal the beginnings of a trend in rural areas away from government farm programs, analysts said.

“With stronger crop prices, more farmers are going to try to make it without the program,” said Randy Weber, commodity analyst at the Agriculture Department.