Tools for Colorado Growers
Updated October 26, 2026
The things a Colorado corn grower actually needs, in one place: the decision aids worth your time, the accounts that unlock everything else, and the deadlines that decide whether a payment reaches your operation.
We have tried to keep this short. Everything on this page is either free, run by people who answer the phone, or both — and where a tool is built on national averages, we say so, because a national average is not a Colorado answer.
ARC/PLC Decision Tool
This is the one to use before December 11. It runs your own base acres and your own program yields rather than handing you a national average, which matters more here than almost anywhere — Colorado’s PLC yields sit below the national average because so much of our corn is dryland.
The current version carries a 2026 FSA ARC/PLC Expected Payments simulation. Rather than giving you one number, it estimates the probability of different payment levels across 500 combinations of market prices and county yields. That is the honest way to look at a decision you have to make before you know the weather or the market.
AFPC builds the representative farm models Congress leans on when it writes this policy, so this is not a third-party guess at the rules. It is from the people who help write the analysis behind them.
Open the decision tool →What the Election Actually Means
Before you open the tool, the mechanics: why enrollment is required even if you change nothing, the PLC yield trap that catches people, and why the per-acre averages circulating around the southern plains overstate what Colorado base will pay.
Read it first →Your USDA Account
Farm records, maps, payment history, and the ability to enroll online instead of waiting on a county appointment. It is also what gets you a pre-filled Harvest Fuel Relief application rather than a blank one when that window opens.
Three steps in an order that matters, and what to do when the record will not link — which happens to people who have farmed with FSA for thirty years.
Set it up →ARC/PLC Election and Enrollment
Enrolling is required even if you are changing nothing. An unenrolled farm receives no 2026 payment — that is USDA’s own wording, not our warning.
What to do →Harvest Fuel Relief
One-time payments for the 2026 crop year, aimed at what diesel did to cost of production. No payment rate and no application window yet, so anyone quoting you a per-acre figure is guessing. One thing is worth doing today, and it is the USDA account above.
What is known →Dyed Diesel on the Road
Off-road dyed diesel can run on the highway and the 24.4 cent federal tax is deferred through year end. Deferred is not forgiven, and Colorado’s own 20.5 cent special fuel tax is a separate question the order does not reach.
The two traps →Farm Policy Reading
Three outside sources worth your time, what each is good for, and the pieces worth starting with. Every link goes to the original, because we would rather you read the analysis than take our word for it.
The three sources →When USDA’s Numbers Move
NASS corrected its September corn data after a processing error reached two states and the national forecast. Worth knowing because the Harvest Fuel Relief formula takes WASDE yields as an input, and those rates land in November.
What was corrected →CLIP — Crop & Livestock Income Protection
An umbrella revenue option that works alongside an existing Revenue Protection policy, letting diversified operations elect higher coverage at better rates by leaning on the risk diversification of several commodities. CCGA helped conceive it with Texas Corn Producers and AgriLogic.
Learn about CLIP →External tools are run by the organisations named, not by CCGA, and we have no hand in their figures or their availability. The AFPC decision aid and helpdesk number are as published by the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M. Deadlines are USDA’s and can move. CCGA administers no USDA program; enrollment and eligibility are determined by FSA, and nothing on this page is legal, tax or financial advice.