Will rice acres turn to soybean acres?
By Mary Hightower
U of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
May 16, 2025
Fast facts
- Frequent rains impeding rice progress
- Prevented Planting deadline May 25
(649 words)
(Newsrooms: With filer of Hardke, planting)
CARLISLE, Ark. — Will some of Arkansas’ anticipated rice acres drift toward soybeans?
Rice planting was moving along fitfully after the floods of early April as subsequent rains became an impediment, said Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
According to the May 12 Crop Progress report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Arkansas rice was 86 percent planted, up from 77 percent the week before. It was behind the 93 percent rate at the same time in 2024, but ahead of the 78 percent five-year average.
Seventy percent of rice has emerged, behind both last year’s 80 percent, but ahead of the 57 percent five-year average.
The Prospective Plantings report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service said that Arkansas farmers had planned to plant 1.461 million acres of rice, with 1.32 million of those acres in long grain rice. Medium grain rice acres moved up 20 percent to 140,000 acres.
Rain, rain go away
Unfortunately, significant rainfall was expected again later this week and into the following week.
“It’s essentially raining our way right out of remaining rice progress,” Hardke said Tuesday. “There absolutely are guys that are going to continue to plant rice whenever that opportunity comes around, even if it's into the beginning of June.”
However, farmers are reaching a decision point — the cutoff for prevented planting coverage.
Prevented planting coverage helps farmers in the event they are unable to plant an insured crop by the final planting date or during the late planting period due to an insured cause of loss.
When adverse weather prevents planting, a payment is made to compensate for costs incurred by farmers in preparation for planting the crop.
Hardke said with the parade of nuisance rains, input costs and the challenges of cash flow, farmers will have to start penciling things out again — looking at their whole farm budget, figuring in continued low commodity prices and higher input costs, including fertilizer.
This year, “production costs were $100 an acre higher than they were in 2021,” he said. “But that’s a lie now, because in the last two weeks, urea prices have now soared.”
Hardke said with corn acres up across the United States, there has been an increase in nitrogen fertilizer demand.
“My understanding is most of the UAN — urea ammonium nitrate — fertilizer is gone,” he said. “Which means the fallback is to urea, which then means we're now competing with the Midwest for urea.”
Hardke said farmers are asking themselves, “‘Do I keep trying to plant some of this or punt on all of it? Do I take a partial crop insurance payment and then plant something later which would be soybeans? Or do they decide to walk away and take the prevented planting insurance payment and not plant anything else?’”
For rice growers, the final planting date is May 25, with a 15-day late-planting period that ends June 9. Rice put in the ground during the late-planting period is still insurable, but at a reduced coverage level.
“Rice, or any insured crop, planted in the late planting period will have its guarantee reduced by 1 percent per day,” said Hunter Biram, extension economist for the Division of Agriculture.
If a farmer planted five days after the final planting date and had purchased a yield protection policy at 75 percent, the yield guarantee would fall to 70 percent of expected yield. Similarly, for revenue protection, the revenue guarantee would fall to 70 percent of expected revenue.
Biram said that any crop planted beyond 15 days after the final planting date is uninsurable.
“At that point, assuming a farmer did not have the initial crop planted prior to the earliest planting date of April 1, the producer could still take a Prevented Planting payment,” Biram said. “They could also plant and insure a second crop.”
To learn more about the state’s rice crop, see 2025 Arkansas Rice Quick Facts.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on X and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu/. Follow on X at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on X at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media contact: Mary Hghtower
mhightower@uada.edu