By Joe Outlaw and Bart L. Fischer et.al
President Trump and USDA Secretary Rollins announced the creation of the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program, a new round of economic assistance totaling $12 billion for the 2025 crop, with $11 billion for row crop farmers. While details such as individual commodity payment rates have not been made available, it was announced that the structure of FBA would be similar to the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) that producers received earlier this year due to low commodity prices received for the 2024 crop. Recall the ECAP program provided assistance based on a producer’s planted acres of eligible commodities and 50% of acres that were prevented from being planted. According to USDA, acres that were prevented from being planted will not be eligible for FBA.
Individual payment rates are expected to be announced the week of December 22nd. Payments are expected to be released by February 28, 2026. It was announced that payment limits would be different from ECAP. Payment limits will be $155,000 per person or legal entity, and the AGI limits will be $900,000. In ECAP, producers could double their limit if 75% of their AGI was from farming. The new assistance does not have this provision.
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