Five Days to September 30

Posted September 18, 2026 · Updated September 25, 2026

Between now and the first week of October, three things land at once. One needs action from you before the month is out. One decides what the safety net looks like next year. The third is money coming back to the farm. They are easy to confuse with each other, and at least one number making the rounds right now belongs to a program that already paid out.

September 30 — SDRP sign-up closes for 2023–2024 disaster losses. This is the one that needs action.

September 30 — the current farm bill extension expires.

Early October — 2025 crop year ARC and PLC payments begin going out.

1. SDRP closes September 30

If you had crop losses from a qualifying 2023 or 2024 disaster and have not filed, this is the last date on the calendar. USDA extended the deadline twice — from April 30 to August 12, then to September 30 — and there is no indication of a third extension. It applies to both Stage 1 and Stage 2, and the payment factor stands at 70%.

Two things worth knowing before you assume you are covered:

You do not have to drive to the county office to beat this. FSA is accepting SDRP applications in person, by fax, by email, or electronically through Box and One, up to close of business on September 30. Call your county office and ask which they would rather have from you.

Full SDRP details, including the August quality loss flexibilities →

2. The farm bill extension expires September 30

The 2018 farm bill has now been extended three times. The current extension — passed in November 2025 alongside the legislation that reopened the federal government — carried the remaining titles and programs at existing funding levels through September 30, 2026. That is the same day SDRP closes.

Part of the work is already done, and it did not come through a farm bill. The 2025 budget reconciliation law — H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — carried several provisions that normally ride in a reauthorization, including the commodity program updates that raised reference prices. That is where the higher corn benchmark driving this October's payments came from. What reconciliation did not do was reauthorize everything else that expires, and that remainder is what is still moving.

It is moving now. The House passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 on April 30. On the Senate side, the Agriculture Committee failed to report Chairman John Boozman's "Farm Bill 2.0" on a 10–11 vote on August 6. It came back on September 16 and advanced 12–11 on a party-line vote, with no amendments and no changes to the text.

It will not be finished by September 30. The Senate floor vote is now expected after Congress returns in November, once the midterms are past, which means the extension runs out first. The choice at that point is another short-term extension or letting some program authorizations lapse. The sticking point has been the SNAP provisions carried over from the reconciliation law, not the commodity title.

What that does and does not touch is worth being precise about. Crop insurance runs on permanent statutory authority and does not lapse. Programs carrying mandatory farm bill funding are the ones whose operating authority can cease, and anything funded through appropriations can keep running on a continuing resolution. The long tail of a lapse is reversion to 1930s permanent law — the "dairy cliff" — which is why these expirations have always been patched rather than allowed to run.

This is the backdrop for what CCGA leadership took to Washington's doorstep this summer. President Jeff Self and Past President Dave Cure made the case at an agriculture round table with Rep. Lauren Boebert for writing a permanent disaster program into the farm bill — a standing program that reaches producers who actually take a loss, without propping up operations that sustain none.

3. ARC and PLC payments begin in early October

Payments for the 2025 program year under PLC, ARC-CO and ARC-IC are issued after October 1, with USDA indicating they should begin going out in early October. A USDA official said on September 2 that the payments will be significantly higher than recent years and on time.

They are higher because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act raised statutory reference prices and changed the ARC formula:

Projections of the total vary by who is running them. University of Illinois economists at farmdoc put corn, wheat and soybeans together at roughly $9.66 billion; broader estimates using USDA price projections put 2025 ARC and PLC above $13.5 billion across all commodities. Either way it is a larger number than the aid package people are talking about — which brings us to the one that is causing confusion.

About the $12 billion you may have heard about

The figure is real. It is not new, and it has already been paid.

On December 8, 2025, the administration announced $12 billion in one-time Farmer Bridge Payments, funded out of tariff revenue. Eleven billion went through the Farmer Bridge Assistance program to row crop producers across some twenty commodities; the remaining billion was set aside for specialty crops and sugar. Corn paid $44.36 per acre, with a cap of $155,000 per producer. Enrollment ran from February 23 to April 17, 2026, and payments began going out from February 28.

The connection to October is direct, and it is the reason the two keep getting mixed up. USDA described the bridge payments as exactly that — a bridge to carry producers until the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's higher reference prices reached them after October 1, 2026.

So if you are hearing that twelve billion dollars is on its way, that money went out last spring. What is coming in October is ARC and PLC, and for most Colorado corn operations it will be the larger of the two.

We have not been able to confirm a December payment date for anything. If you have heard a specific date from your lender, your FSA office, or farm media, we would like to know where it came from — contact details are below. Dates that circulate without a source have a way of becoming the reason somebody misses a real one.

Why This Is the Argument for a Permanent Program

Look at the last two years from the seat of an operation that took a loss. Disaster help came through SDRP, a program standing up two years after the 2023 losses it covers, with three different deadlines and a payment factor that changed partway through. Market help came through a one-time bridge payment announced in December, paid in spring, explicitly described as a stopgap. Neither is something you can plan against.

That is the case CCGA is making. A permanent disaster title does not cost a farmer who had a good year anything, and it means the farmer who had a bad one is not waiting on an ad hoc bill, a new sign-up period, and a payment factor that gets revised while the application window is open.

The Vote Moved to November. The Call Still Matters.

A week ago this looked like a race to finish before September 30. It is not one any more — the Senate is expected to take the bill up after the midterms. That changes what is worth asking for, but not whether to ask.

Two things are worth a call now. First, that whatever Congress does on September 30 does not leave producers guessing through harvest and into next year's operating loan conversations. Second, that when the bill does reach the floor in November, it carries a permanent disaster title. Positions get locked in during the weeks a bill is waiting, not during the hour it is debated.

Colorado's senators are Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Growers on the eastern plains are represented in the House by Rep. Lauren Boebert in the 4th District.

If you are not sure what to say, keep it short and make it local. Three things worth putting in your own words:

This is not about an election. It is about a bill on the floor right now, and about asking the people already holding those seats to get it done.

What To Do This Week

Sources

This page is informational. CCGA does not administer SDRP, ARC, PLC, or the Farmer Bridge Assistance program, and nothing here is a determination of your eligibility. Payment rates, deadlines, and projections are as reported by USDA and university economists at the time of writing and can change. All applications and questions go through your local FSA office.