S. 1259

Commodity Program Improvement Act of 2017

This bill reauthorizes and modifies several Department of Agriculture (USDA) commodity programs that were included in the 2014 farm bill (the Agricultural Act of 2014). The programs provide price and income support to farmers for covered commodities.

The bill modifies the Agricultural Risk Coverage-County program, which provides revenue loss coverage at the county level by issuing payments when the actual county crop revenue of a covered commodity is below a specified amount. USDA currently calculates payments for farms located in more than one county using one of the counties (known as an administrative county). The bill requires the payments to be calculated using the payment rate for the county in which the land is physically located.

The bill also requires USDA to update the crop acreage base used to determine payments under commodity programs for the 2019 crop year. USDA must determine the updated base acres on a farm using covered commodities planted on the farm during the 2014-2017 crop years.