This story originally ran on December 8th, 2025.
This year is likely to be good for farmers who qualify for government payments. Some have already received Emergency Commodity Assistance Program payments for the 2024 crop year. Those payments are part of a $10 billion USDA initiative to offset increased costs and low crop prices. The payments began in early 2025, and will continue to be dispersed through this month. The payments are covering eligible planted and prevented planted acres for various commodities that included wheat, corn, and soybeans, and are based on a per acre rate.
Then on Monday, a $12 billion financial aid package for farmers was announced by President Trump, as compensation to farmers who had lost exports of soybeans and other agricultural commodities, while paying higher costs for inputs such as equipment and repairs. During the trade war, China found other suppliers, creating long-term market uncertainty that forced many U.S. farmers to the brink of insolvency. Now affected farmers will need to wait while the wheels of bureaucracy grind out payments sometime, hopefully in the near future. John Newton, vice president of public policy and economic analysis at the American Farm Bureau Federation, pointed out recently that U.S. farmers have been left with accumulated losses of more than $50 billion over the past three crop years. I have to wonder if farmers wouldn’t be better off if The U.S. hadn’t started a trade war with an important trading partner.
The USDA plan calls for farmers with an adjusted gross incomes that average below $900,000 for the 2022-2024 tax years, will be eligible for this new program. They have until December 19th to submit acreage reporting data that will determine their payment amount. The rates for this program will be released by the end of December, and payments will be made no later than the end of February 2026.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, more than half of U.S. farms are losing money, "forcing families to rely on off-farm income just to survive.” Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins stated that "This country and our farm economy is facing a crisis that we inherited, that most of these farmers have not seen in their lifetimes." However, John Newton, vice president of public policy and economic analysis at the American Farm Bureau Federation, in November said U.S. farmers are still left with accumulated losses of more than $50 billion over the past three crop years.
Rollins stated that “We do have a bridge payment we will be announcing with you next week as we’re still trying to recover from the Biden years.” The aid package has been dubbed a “bridge payment” because it is intended to help farmers offset losses this crop year before new programs in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act go into effect in 2026.
The specter of an invasion of the screwworm fly to the southern and southwest U.S. continues to haunt livestock producers and government agencies, since screwworm flies have been found less than a hundred miles south of the southern U.S. border, but, the USDA and the Mexican government are hardening up the barriers. USDA is investing $21 million to renovate a fruit fly production facility in Meta pa, Mexico, and APHIS is spending $8.5 million to modify an existing building at Moore Air force Base in southern Texas, to produce millions of sterile male flies that will be released in southern Texas and northern Mexico to combat this often fatal pest of livestock, horses and wildlife.
This link takes listeners to a light hearted tale about some Kansas ranchers that help to capture a couple of deer poachers in rough canyon country Frontier Justice: Cowboy Posse Corners Deer Poacher in Buck-Wild Bust - AgWeb
