By Andi Anderson
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now in both the House and Senate, includes a hidden farm bill. This rare move could bring major changes to farm policy if passed.
It increases crop insurance support and allows landowners to add base acres, which are used to calculate government payments under commodity programs.
Experts from the University of Illinois say this is unusual. “The bill includes changes to ARC and PLC programs and boosts insurance options like SCO,” explained economist Gary Schnitkey. Subsidies for crop insurance would rise.
Basic and Optional Unit subsidies will increase, and the SCO coverage would move from 86% to 90%. Premium subsidies for SCO would also increase from 65% to 80%, making it more attractive for farmers.
The bill also lets landowners add new base acres if the average planted acres of program crops from 2019 to 2023 exceed current base acres. While this helps many Midwest farmers who plant more corn and soybeans than their base acres, bigger benefits would go to Southern farmers.
That’s because up to 15% of non-program crop land could be converted, and old cotton base acres (called unassigned acres) could return to the program.
The impact could be large. Around 30 million new base acres could be added—an 11% increase. This would raise the cost of commodity programs. Still, Southern crops like rice, peanuts, and cotton would gain more.
Payments for these crops are much higher than for corn or soybeans. For example, peanuts could earn $256 per acre, compared to $21 for soybeans.
This difference raises concerns. More subsidies go to regions planting less of those crops, creating unfair advantages and making future changes harder. As Schnitkey noted, “We're making those disparities wider.”
This bill could shape future farm support—and regional fairness—for years to come.
Categories: National