Macon County landowners who want to put ground into the federal Conservation Reserve Program are out of luck for now.
The program's authority ran out at midnight Sept. 30, when the 2018 farm bill expired. Since Oct. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency cannot accept or approve new offers, including offers to re-enroll expiring land, according to an agency notice to state and county offices dated Sept. 25. As of Oct. 20, Congress had not passed a new farm bill or an extension.
Existing contracts stay in force, according to the National Farmers Union, which reviewed the expiration on Oct. 14.
The freeze lands on a county that has already given up nearly half its conservation ground. The Macon Chronicle reported Oct. 16 that Macon County had 18,270 acres under contract at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, down 45% from 33,433 acres in 2015. That is about 15,160 acres, or nearly 24 square miles.
The big drop
The biggest one-year drops came in 2021, when Macon County lost about 3,950 acres, in 2023, when it lost about 3,310, and in 2018, when it lost about 3,230, according to the agency's county history tables.
Those years line up with a wave of expiring contracts. An agency expiration schedule built from 2020 contract data showed 22,493 of Macon County's 27,310 enrolled acres, or 82%, set to expire from 2020 through 2023. Only about 1,100 acres were scheduled to expire in 2024 and 2025 combined, and losses stopped. Enrollment ticked up in 2025 for the first time since 2016.
Why CRP enrollment dropped
Grain prices spiked at the same time. The national average corn price jumped from $3.56 a bushel in the 2019 marketing year to $6.00 in 2021 and $6.54 in 2022, according to Farm Service Agency price tables. Soybeans went from $8.57 to $13.30 and then $14.20.
The rent rarely kept up with the market. The average Macon County conservation contract paid about $96 an acre in 2015, according to the agency, while USDA's county cash-rent survey put non-irrigated cropland at $126 in 2016. In 2023, the average contract paid about $131, while the survey put cash rent at $142, as the Chronicle reported Oct. 14.
New contracts do not get the county's full rate. Under the 2018 farm bill, general signup rent is set at 85% of the county average rental rate, and continuous signup rent at 90%, according to the Congressional Research Service. The agency set Macon County's 2026 average dryland rate at $139. Eighty-five percent of that is about $118 an acre, below this year's $135 survey cash rent.
The land also got more valuable. The average value of Macon County farmland and buildings rose from $3,194 an acre in 2017 to $4,026 in 2022, a 26% increase, according to the Census of Agriculture as compiled by University of Missouri Extension. Land in farms grew by about 39,550 acres over the same period.
The records don't say whether owners chose not to re-enroll or whether their offers were turned down. Nationally, the program has been bumping against its 27-million-acre cap. In 2025, the agency had about 1.8 million acres available and received offers on about 2.6 million, according to agency announcements.
What is left
Most of what remains is grass. About 9,110 acres are in introduced grasses and about 6,540 acres in native grasses, about 86% of the county's total, according to the agency's practices report for September 2025. The rest is filter strips, riparian buffers, wetland, pollinator, and wildlife plantings.
Whole-field grass contracts are the easiest ground to put back into crops or pasture when a contract ends.
Who pulled land out, and where in the county, is not public. The agency publishes county totals only.
What happens now
Land whose contract expired Sept. 30 without a re-enrollment offer filed by May 1 can be offered again in fiscal 2027 or later, but it must qualify as new land, according to the agency notice. That requires Congress to restore the program first.
Accepted offers that the agency had not approved by the close of business Sept. 30 had to be rejected, the notice says.
Several neighboring counties have seen the same slide. Adair County lost 59% of its acres from 2015 to 2025, and Monroe County lost 41%, according to the agency. Shelby County held steady.
The Macon County Farm Service Agency office is in the USDA Service Center at 2108 U.S. Highway 63 in Macon.