Maintaining adequate records has many benefits for farms of all sizes and is crucial for making more informed business decisions. Additionally, maintaining crop planting and production records and submitting them to the Farm Service Agency (FSA) can open up access to a large number of potential resources at USDA, like farm loans, crop insurance, and financial assistance for disaster recovery. But for small-scale, diversified, or beginner farmers, record-keeping often gets put on the back burner in the face of other urgent tasks.

The administrative burdens of record keeping, sometimes combined with FSA staff discouragement, often leave farmers asking, “Why bother to report?” As a result, small-scale, urban, and diversified operations have historically had low participation in FSA. But the fact is, the presence or absence of crop reporting is often the deciding factor in whether or not a farmer is able to benefit from most FSA programs. Recent disaster programs have generated pre-filled applications based on producers’ prior year records, leaving many farmers who have never reported out of luck. Establishing a production history is also an important part of being ready to apply for both private and FSA loans — particularly if your crop or production method is unfamiliar to your local FSA office staff.

Reporting crop production generates data that helps inform the FSA about farmers’ needs in your area. Many factors influence national USDA policymaking, but if small-scale farmers don’t participate, they will not be counted — and that can affect future funding decisions and how programs are implemented at the county level.

There are two layers of crop reporting for FSA: crop planting and crop production. Crop planting refers to the type and quantity of what you put in the ground during your planting seasons. Crop production refers to the type and quantity of what gets harvested.

Crop Planting

Crop planting records — often known in FSA lingo as certification, crop acreage reporting, or reports of commodities — involve documenting field-specific planting data that aligns with your FSA Farm Map. Producers must have an FSA-registered farm number to receive their map, so new producers will first need to apply for one. For your crop acreage report, you must document the following:

• Crop type and variety
• Intended crop use: fresh, grain, forage/hay, grazing, seed, processed, or silage
• Quantity planted in acres or feet
• Planting date in month/date/year format
• Planting pattern: solid, skip/strip, or orchard
• Whether it is irrigated or not
• Producer’s share of the crop

This information could be written down in a notebook or entered into an Excel spreadsheet. Whatever method you choose, this information must be reported to FSA using your FSA Farm Map. Using your Farm Map, you will need to notate which farm number, tract number, and field number the crop is grown in. If your operation is small in acreage, grown indoors, or planted in skip rows, this task can be very challenging, depending on what the aerial imagery of your farm looks like. Note that even if you are a small producer and your production space isn’t considered cropland, you can still report it. Crops may be reported in as small as a 2.5-inch by 2.5-inch area. We recommend printing out the aerial image and writing out the details in a bold pen anywhere on top of the image where it can be easily read, on the back page of the map, or on a separate sheet of paper.

Once you submit your completed Farm Map, your local FSA office will load your information into the software and generate an FSA-578 “Report of Commodities” form per farm. We recommend getting a photocopy of the date-stamped, signed report and map once it has been submitted to FSA for your records, along with a Receipt for Service.

Crop reporting deadlines vary depending on the state you are farming in, the crop type, and whether it is insured. You must report your crops and sign the FSA-578 “Report of Commodities” form by the crop-specific deadline to be considered “timely filed.” We recommend contacting your local or state FSA office to request a copy of your state’s acreage reporting deadlines for all crops, printing it out, and keeping it somewhere handy, like on the refrigerator, as a reminder. You may late-file your crops after this deadline within one year of the deadline if you can verify the existence of the crop and pay the late fee. An FSA field visit is required for most late-filed reports.

Crop Production

Documenting what you harvest or produce can help you better understand your business. Not only is keeping these crop production records good practice, but there are often hard requirements for certain private and FSA loans, crop insurance, subsidies, and disaster programs. Failing to maintain production records can negatively impact your indemnity payment if you suffer a crop loss due to a disaster. It can also prevent you from qualifying for certain loans or for crop insurance with higher coverage levels.

In this context, production means the amount of crops harvested by weight — measured in pounds, bushels, tons, or CWT/hundredweight — at a particular time. Your crop yield is the measurement of how much crop is harvested per unit of land area, like pounds per acre. You may have a particular method of production record-keeping that works best for your operation, capacity, and goals. Harvest season is generally very busy, so what is efficient and easy may look different for different farmers. For some farmers, counting units once the crop has been washed and prepped for market may work best. Even if you don’t sell your crops by weight, you will still need to measure and record weights to meet FSA information requirements.

Record keeping is often a daunting task, especially when trying to comply with FSA rules. If it feels challenging to you, you are not alone! RAFI is here to help you find solutions for your operation. RAFI staff can help you identify your goals for record-keeping and help develop strategies that work best for you.

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Amanda Meyers is a RAFI Farmer Advocate based in South Carolina. Amanda is passionate about local food systems and supporting farmers. She utilizes her prior experience as a farmhand, paralegal, social worker, and with USDA to provide a holistic and empathetic approach to farm advocacy.