In the United States, the Acreage Reduction Program (ARP) is a no-longer-authorized annual cropland retirement program for wheat, feed grains, cotton, or rice in which farmers participating in the commodity programs (in order to be eligible for nonrecourse loans and deficiency payments) were mandated to idle a crop-specific, nationally set portion of their base acreage during years of surplus.
The goal was to reduce supplies, thereby raising market prices.
Additionally, idled acres did not earn deficiency payments, thus reducing commodity program costs.
ARP was criticized for diminishing the U.S. competitive position in export markets.
ARP differed from a set-aside program in that under a set-aside program reductions were based upon current year plantings, and did not require farmers to reduce their plantings of a specific crop.