By Bridget Bafowaa and Adam Rabinowitz
During the farm bill legislative process in 2024, the House Agriculture Committee proposed increases to the Nonrecourse Marketing Assistance Loan (MAL) rates that were predominantly 10% higher than the existing rates for the major commodities shown in Table 1. A discussion of the 2024 House and Senate proposals was published in Southern Ag Today on June 24, 2024.
While the farm bill was never finalized in 2024, on July 4, 2025, President Trump signed into law the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that included many agricultural provisions. New MAL rates, similar to the previous House Agriculture Committee proposal, were included in Title I Subtitle C of this bill, effective with the 2026 crop year through the 2031 crop year.
Here we compare the MAL rate of 2018 to the new MAL rate, as well as discuss the function of the MAL as a marketing tool to cover operating costs of production. Table 1 shows the 2018 loan rate and the new MAL rates. The MAL rate has increased 10% across the board, except for upland cotton which ranges between 6% and 22%.
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