The 5 Largest USDA Subsidy Programs Explained
March 15, 2026
USDA administers dozens of assistance programs, but a handful account for the vast majority of total dollars paid. Understanding these five gives you a solid foundation for reading the SubsidyLookup data.
1. Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) — CFDA 10.170
ARC covers the gap when a county's or individual farm's crop revenue falls below a benchmark. Farmers enrolled in ARC choose between a county-level trigger (ARC-CO) and an individual trigger (ARC-IC). Payments are tied to actual revenue shortfalls rather than price alone, making ARC more responsive to localized events.
2. Price Loss Coverage (PLC) — CFDA 10.170
PLC is ARC's companion election. Instead of a revenue benchmark, PLC pays when the national market price for a covered commodity falls below a reference price set by Congress. Corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, and peanuts are the primary covered crops. In years with strong commodity prices, PLC pays nothing; in down years, it can be substantial.
3. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) — CFDA 10.069
CRP pays farmers annual rent to keep highly erodible or environmentally sensitive land out of production. Contracts typically run 10–15 years. CRP is one of the largest private-land conservation programs in the world, with roughly 20–25 million acres enrolled in recent years.
4. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) — CFDA 10.912
EQIP funds conservation practices on working agricultural land — things like nutrient management plans, cover cropping, fencing to protect waterways, and irrigation efficiency upgrades. Unlike CRP, EQIP keeps land in production.
5. Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) — CFDA 10.090
LFP compensates livestock producers when drought or wildfire reduces forage on grazing land. It's one of several programs under the Livestock Disaster Assistance umbrella that can generate large payments in bad drought years, particularly in Texas, Oklahoma, and the Northern Plains.
You can browse all programs by CFDA number in SubsidyLookup's program index, or use search to jump to a specific program by keyword.