CRP acres expiring in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa

USDA's Farm Service Agency showed about 373,400 Conservation Reserve Program acres in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin with contracts that ended on September 30, 2026, and about 410,100 more scheduled to expire on September 30, 2027 (Kedron calculations from FSA's CRP Monthly Summary, September 2026, the last summary before the 2026 contracts ended). Iowa carries most of it: 272,457 acres in 2026 and 300,004 in 2027.

CRP acres expiring by state and year

Source: USDA FSA, CRP Monthly Summary, September 2026, posted October 2026. Acres under contract as of September 2026, by the fiscal year the contract ends (September 30). The 2026 column is the contracts that ended on September 30, 2026. Each state's row adds up to its total enrolled acres.

Two years stand out. In 2026 and 2027 combined, 35% of Iowa's enrolled CRP acres were scheduled to expire, against 18% in Minnesota, 20% in Wisconsin and 11% nationally (Kedron calculations). After 2027, expirations drop off in all three states until 2030.

How much CRP ground is enrolled, and what it pays

Source: USDA FSA, CRP Monthly Summary, September 2026. Rental payments are the ones scheduled for October 2026.

For comparison, USDA NASS's 2026 average cash rent for cropland was $271 an acre in Iowa and $206 in Minnesota (as reported by DTN, July 31, 2026), and non-irrigated cropland rent in Wisconsin was $166 (Wisconsin Farm Reporter, August 2026). So the average CRP payment ran about $31 an acre below the state cash rent in Iowa and $39 below in Minnesota, and about $14 above it in Wisconsin (Kedron calculations). These are state averages set against state averages. On any given farm, the soils, the CRP contract rate and the local rent decide which way the numbers go.

What happened in the 2026 CRP signup?

Sources: USDA FSA state releases for Iowa (July 8, 2026) and Minnesota (July 7, 2026). Wisconsin figures are from FSA's July 2026 release as reported by Wisconsin Ag Connection (July 9, 2026); FSA's own Wisconsin page was not loading when we checked on September 30, 2026.

Accepted acres include new land, which is why Iowa's accepted figure (186,247) is larger than its re-enrollment offers (168,906). The releases don't say how many of the accepted acres were re-enrollments.

The expiring figures in FSA's releases are a different snapshot from the monthly summaries. For Iowa, the July release said "nearly 272,745" acres were set to expire, the July 2026 monthly summary showed 272,720, and the September 2026 summary showed 272,457. The count changes a little from month to month, so quote each figure with its source and date.

The last column is a Kedron estimate, not an FSA figure: expiring acres in FSA's release minus the acres FSA says were offered for re-enrollment (for Iowa, 272,745 minus 168,906). FSA gives both inputs as approximate ("nearly" and "approximately"), and Minnesota's are rounded to the thousand, so read it as a rough size. It is not a count of acres leaving CRP or going back to crops. FSA says expiring acres that weren't offered for re-enrollment by May 1, 2026, may be offered in a future signup, if they meet the rules for new acres (FSA Notice CRP-1101, September 25, 2026). What it suggests is that a sizable share of the ground expiring in 2026 was not offered back in that signup.

Where is county-level CRP data?

We have not published county figures here. The county file FSA posts is several years old (its columns start at 2020), and we won't present an old snapshot as current. The county data is public:

• FSA CRP statistics page: fsa.usda.gov CRP statistics. Look for "CRP Contract Expirations by County, 2020-2031+" (direct Excel link) and "CRP Enrollment and Rental Payments by County, 1986-2025."
• How to use it: filter to your state, then your counties, and read the 2027 column. Sort by acres to see where expiring ground is concentrated in your trade area.
• Your county FSA office: the place to confirm current expiring acres locally and the options for the ground.
• Signup results by county: FSA's 2026 state releases named only the top three counties for accepted acres (in the table above).

What expiring CRP means for land listings

An expiring contract puts a landowner at a decision point: re-enroll (when FSA can take offers), farm it, rent it, hunt it or sell it. The FSA table tells you which years those decisions pile up, and the county file tells you where. That makes expirations a practical prospecting list, and how land agents get listings covers how to work it into your prospecting.

If the ground sells while still under contract, the contract doesn't simply follow the deed. Under federal CRP rules, a new owner may be approved to take over the contract. If the new owner doesn't become the successor within 60 days, the contract terminates on that land and the original participant must refund the payments received, plus interest and liquidated damages, unless USDA agrees otherwise (7 CFR 1410.51). What happens to a CRP contract when land sells covers that in full. Send the seller to their county FSA office before the listing goes live.

For buyers, enrolled acres are part of what they're buying. Marketing land enrolled in MFL, SFIA or CRP covers how to present them in the listing.

Is CRP enrollment open after September 30, 2026?

New enrollment paused when FSA's authority lapsed on September 30, 2026. FSA said in February 2026 that its authority to run CRP had been extended only through September 30, 2026, by a continuing appropriations act, and that the program was near its 27-million-acre cap, with 1.9 million acres available for all enrollments in fiscal 2026 (USDA FSA, February 10, 2026). FSA's Notice CRP-1101 (September 25, 2026) told county offices that, without new legislation, no new offers or re-enrollment offers could be processed or approved after September 30, 2026. Contracts approved by that date keep receiving their payments.

Congress' continuing resolution funds the government through December 11 but did not extend the farm bill, so new CRP enrollment is paused until Congress acts (DTN, October 1, 2026). The Senate Agriculture Committee passed a five-year farm bill on September 16, 2026, which still needs a Senate floor vote (High Plains Journal, September 18, 2026).

This can change whenever Congress acts. Before telling a landowner what their options are, check the current status with the county FSA office.

How to read these numbers

• Fiscal years end September 30. "2027" means contracts ending September 30, 2027.
• Expiring is not the same as leaving. Some expiring acres are re-enrolled. The 2026 signup table shows how many were offered back, and how many acres, re-enrolled and new, were accepted.
• State totals hide the county story. Iowa's accepted acres were led by Taylor and Ringgold counties in the south and Kossuth in the north. Local concentration is only visible in the county file.
• Average rent is an average. FSA's per-acre figure blends every practice and contract year in the state.

When this updates

• FSA CRP Monthly Summary: monthly. The September 2026 summary was the latest posted on FSA's CRP statistics page when we checked on October 19, 2026.
• FSA county expiration file: posted on the same page. Check the file for its as-of date, and confirm local numbers with the county FSA office.
• Signup results: FSA announced 2026 results by state in early July 2026. The next signup depends on Congress restoring CRP's authority.

Figures on this page are from FSA's September 2026 summary, the last before the 2026 contracts ended. We'll update it when FSA's monthly summaries drop the 2026 column, and when Congress acts on CRP's authority.

Pull your counties from the FSA file, read the 2027 column, and note where the acres are. The market data page has the rest of our reports.