By Tom Hance*
On December 8th, President Trump unveiled another round of economic assistance for farmers that has been teased for several months, with Treasury Secretary Bessent and USDA Secretary Rollins indicating in interviews and public statements that aid to growers would be coming.
The assistance, totaling $12 billion, was officially announced at a roundtable meeting at the White House that included President Trump, Secretary Bessent, Secretary Rollins, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-AR), Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) and representatives of a few agricultural trade associations and companies. Following the White House meeting, USDA issued a release and held a call with agricultural stakeholders.
The Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program will provide $11 billion in economic assistance for row-crop farmers. Eligible row crops include sunflower, along with all of the other farm bill Title I program crops: barley, chickpeas, corn, cotton, lentils, oats, peanuts, peas, rice, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, and sesame.
USDA intends to issue payments to growers by February 28, 2026. Payments will be made per acre, per crop, using the producers’ 2025 Planted Acreage Report. Producers had until December 19, 2025 to submit and finalize their acreage reports. The payment rate for each crop is still to be determined as of this writing, and USDA hopes to have that available on or around December 22nd, shortly after the acreage report deadline. USDA indicated their intent to have the payment rate available to producers and their lenders in time for the information to be factored into financing decisions for the 2026 crop.
USDA plans to develop pre-filled applications to streamline the process for growers. Payment limits will apply and will use the updated level of $155,000 per individual as revised in the farm program provisions of the Reconciliation Bill enacted in July 2025.
The remaining $1 billion of the $12 billion in bridge payments will be reserved for specialty crop commodities not covered in the FBA Program. Details for the specialty crop payments are still under development.
If producers have questions, they can contact the local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office or email USDA at: farmerbridge@usda.gov.
This Farmer Bridge Assistance for 2025 crop year follows the $10 billion for the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) enacted by Congress in December 2024 and distributed to growers by USDA in 2025. Congress also enacted funding for the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) to cover severe weather events experienced by farmers in 2023 and 2024.
This year, Congress also enacted significant improvements to the existing farm programs and crop insurance as part of the Reconciliation bill (aka the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act). This included increases in Reference Prices for all commodities under the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program and increasing the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) guarantee from 86 to 90% of the benchmark revenue. The Reference Price for the “Other Oilseeds” category, which includes sunflower, was increased by 17.9%, from $20.15 to $23.75 per pound. An expansion of base acres and crop insurance enhancements were also part of the Reconciliation bill enacted by Congress.
Implementation of the crop insurance enhancements was part of another announcement from the USDA Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) in early December. FCIC issued updated regulations, in the form of a final rule titled Expanding Access to Risk Protection (EARP), which implement the changes enacted in the Reconciliation bill as well as some additional items.
Notable items include clarifying harvest price methods, removing barriers to direct marketing and getting rid of buy-up coverage for prevented planting in the program. The elimination of a farmer's ability to purchase buy-up prevent plant coverage is particularly impactful to growers in North Dakota and the Prairie Pothole region. Producers who elect buy-up coverage pay a slightly higher premium to qualify for an indemnity payment that is 5% more than the basic coverage.
The new regulations indicate that USDA believes, “This is no longer needed because Congress has a history of addressing widespread flooding through ad-hoc disaster assistance, such as the 2019 Supplemental bill that funded prevented planting ‘‘top-off’’ payments, providing an additional 10 to 15% to eligible producers who had already received prevented planting indemnities.”
The amendments take effect in 2026 for crops with a contract change date on or after November 30, 2025. For all other crops, changes to the policies are applicable for the 2027 and succeeding crop years.
The full notice can be found at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/11/28/2025-21482/expanding-access-to-risk-protection-earp?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery. They are accepting public comments on the regulations through January 27, 2026.
It was certainly an eventful 2025, for better and worse, and many of the issues and actions will be carried over into 2026. Here’s hoping markets will improve and things can be a little quieter on the federal policy front in 2026.
* Tom Hance is with Gordley Associates, Washington representative for the National Sunflower Association.