Farmers May Need Emergency Market Aid, Ag Leaders Say

By Ryan Hanrahan

Federal crop safety net changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — including enhancements to the Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage programs — were designed to help an agriculture industry facing a challenging economic situation.

While agriculture industry leaders and important government figures are saying those changes should help, they’re beginning to acknowledge that they may not be enough — or may not come soon enough — to make a meaningful impact for farmers. At events this past week, both Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, addressed the potential need for additional federal assistance for farmers, on top of the changes made in the budget bill.

Brownfield Ag News’ Carah Hart reported that Duvall “says farmers might need more federal assistance to make it through 2026.”

“I’m beginning to hear in the last few weeks, especially in the southeast part of the country starting with the Bootheel of Missouri south, it’s time for the USDA and President Trump to start talking about that,’” Duvall said, according to Hart’s reporting. “Duvall tells Brownfield farmers have mixed feelings about more ad-hoc assistance; while farmers would rather have demand from open, international markets to sell their commodities, it’s also a tough farm economy.”

But, he “says it’s getting close to time for Farm Bureau to meet with the USDA to discuss possible trade aid,” Hart reported. “‘Time is of the essence. The quicker we can do it, the quicker that relief can get to farmers and the easier it will be for them to go to the bank this winter,’ he says.”

Agri-Pulse’s Noah Wicks reported that Thune “is taking a wait and see approach to determining whether additional assistance will be needed this fall to help commodity farmers weather a challenging farm economy.” 

“‘I think we keep the options open,’ Thune told reporters at Dakotafest in Mitchell, South Dakota, on Wednesday when asked if farmers would need aid this fall since the increased reference prices in the One Big Beautiful Bill would not be available until next year,” Wicks reported. “Thune said ‘we’ll see if there’s a demand’ for payments similar to those made available to producers by the Agriculture Department in 2018 through the Market Facilitation Program as compensation for losses due to tariffs.”

“‘With the margins our farmers are operating with right now, we’ve got big problems because they’re losing money — and they’re going to have good yields this year, which is great and hopefully that will offset and compensate for some of that,’ he said,” according to Wicks’ reporting. “‘But we can’t just continue to lose money on every sale in agriculture. So we’ll see what the fall yields and we’ll decide where to go from there.’”

Trump Administration Has Previously Said Aid Would Be Available, if Necessary

Back in April, Axios’ Ben Berkowitz reported that “President Trump is prepared to bail out American farmers if the trade war continues squeezing commodity exports, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.”

“‘First of all, the prayer is that that doesn’t need to happen — but secondly, if it does, for the short term, just as in Trump 1, we are preparing for that,’ Rollins told CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’” Berkowitz reported.

“Agriculture consultants and economists tell Axios that farmers don’t necessarily want bailouts — they want trade certainty so they can harvest and sell their crops,” Berkowitz reported. “‘Trade aid isn’t going to be farmers’ first choice for a solution of all this, farmers prefer to earn their money from the markets,’ American Soybean Association economist Jacquie Holland said this week.”

Farmers May Need Emergency Market Aid, Ag Leaders Say was originally published by Farmdoc.