(a) A sugarcane producer on a farm may transfer all or a portion of the producer's acreage base history of land owned, operated, or controlled to any other farm in the State that the producer owns, operates, or controls under the Deputy Administrator-issued instructions. The transfer will reduce permanently the transferring farm's sugarcane acreage base history and increase the receiving farm's crop acreage base.

(1) All farm owners must agree in writing to the transfer.

(2) Producers may transfer sugarcane acreage base histories under this section by the date the State FSA committee establishes annually.

(b) Sugarcane acreage base that has been converted to nonagricultural use on or before May 13, 2002, may be transferred to other land suitable for the production of sugarcane under the following terms:

(1) CCC must notify 1 or more affected landowners within 90 days of becoming aware of the conversion, of their rights to transfer the base to 1 or more farms owned by the landowner;

(2) The landowner has 90 days from the date the landowner was notified to transfer the base;

(3) If the landowner does not exercise this transfer right, the grower of record will have 90 days after being notified by CCC to transfer the base to 1 or more farms owned by the grower;

(4) If the transfers as specified under paragraphs (b)(2) or (3) of this section are not accomplished during the specified periods, FSA county committee will place the base into a pool for possible reassignment to other farms;

(5) After providing notice to farm owners, operators and growers of record in the county, the committee will accept requests from farm owners, operators, and growers in the county;

(6) The county committee will assign the base to other sugarcane farms in the county that are eligible and capable of accepting the acreage base, based on a random drawing among requests received under paragraph (b)(5) of this section;

(7) Any unassigned base will be made available to the State FSA committee and be allocated to remaining FSA county committees in the State representing counties with farms eligible for assignment of the base, based on a random drawing; and

(8) After the acreage base has been reassigned, the acreage base will remain on the farm and subject to the transfer provisions of paragraph (a) of this section.