At a Glance
- Roughly $11 billion is expected to be distributed based on the 2025 crop year.
- Payments are intended to arrive in early 2026 to help bridge cash-flow gaps.
- Additional farm program and safety-net payments are expected later in the year.
- Questions remain about how much relief the program provides relative to ongoing cost and market pressures.
This Policy Report column was first published by Nebraska Farmer on Jan. 7, 2026, and is excerpted here with permission.
In early December, President Donald Trump personally announced a $12 billion assistance package for farmers.
The assistance was described as help to address export losses from trade conflicts and unfair trade practices, as well as economic losses from higher production costs and inflationary pressure. The package included $11 billion in a Farmer Bridge Assistance program for row crop commodities, along with $1 billion for specialty crops and other assistance.
FBA should provide substantial assistance and cash flow for crop producers in early 2026 before the farm program improvements passed last July begin to pay out in October.
The assistance was specifically described as a bridge over the gap between previous market returns and government assistance and the pending farm program support, as well as the promise of improved economic conditions for agriculture.
Does it bridge the gap?
Whether the assistance is enough to bridge the gap until better economic times and support appear, or is just a Band-Aid on a deeper wound that needs more support, is a question open to more discussion and debate.
The economic downturn in the U.S. crop sector over the past few years has been substantial. Aggregate crop receipts were projected to have fallen by $46 billion to $237 billion in 2025, compared to $283 billion in 2022 according to the latest USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) farm income projections from September.
Those numbers reflect estimated receipts as of late summer and thus don’t directly reflect production or price changes or recent developments over the past few months, but they do provide some indication of the economic challenges for producers.
Among major commodities, corn, cotton and soybeans suffered the largest drops of about 30% or more. With production costs for purchased inputs, labor, land and interest all up over that same time frame, the economic challenges for the crop sector are apparent.
In comparison to the $46 billion lost in crop receipts, along with higher production costs over the past three years, the $11 billion assistance package may seem like a drop in the bucket. However, there have been several buckets of assistance over the past few years and more to come to measure the full impact.
In late 2024, Congress passed the American Relief Act, including $10 billion in economic assistance and $21 billion in disaster assistance for agriculture. The economic assistance was included in large part to address the lack of a new farm bill with an updated, stronger safety net for the 2024 crop.
The Economic Crop Assistance Program (ECAP) paid out $9.3 billion to producers in 2025 to provide assistance on the 2024 crop, similar to how FBA will provide $11 billion to producers in 2026 tied to the 2025 crop.
The ag disaster assistance was included to address ag disaster losses in 2023 and 2024, including both crop and livestock assistance. The Supplemental Disaster Relief Program for qualifying crop losses makes up the bulk of the assistance.
Stage 1 of SDRP had paid out nearly $5.9 billion as of late December on qualifying losses tied to existing crop insurance claims. Sign-up for Stage 2 assistance for qualifying losses not covered by crop insurance (shallow losses), uninsured losses and quality losses is still underway through April.
There are expectations for Stage 3 payments to top what is received in Stage 1 and Stage 2 once applications are complete and remaining funds can be distributed. Altogether, the SDRP program could provide nearly $20 billion in assistance, with about $6 billion paid in 2025 and $14 billion expected in 2026.
