Ag News
USDA to offer market disruption bridge payments to farmers
Posted on Dec 17, 2025 at 13:30 PM
On Dec. 8, the USDA announced it will make $12 billion available in one-time “bridge” payments to American farmers in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs. According to a USDA release, these bridge payments are intended in part to aid farmers until payments from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), including reference prices which are set to increase between 10-21% for major covered commodities such as soybeans, corn, and wheat and will reach eligible farmers on Oct. 1, 2026.
A variety of agricultural groups praised the move.
“We greatly appreciate the Trump administration recognizing the ongoing and increasingly complicated financial struggles Georgia’s farmers are enduring, and we welcome the federal government’s help,” said Georgia Farm Bureau President Tom McCall. “These bridge payments offer much-needed relief for farmers as they navigate through intense market pressure, high input prices and other factors that have caused farm income to decline drastically in recent years.”
American Farm Bureau noted that U.S. farmers are projected to lose $34 billion in 2025.
“America’s farmers have been hit from every direction during this economic storm,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall said. “They face the same high prices as all of America’s families, as more of their income is going to household bills and higher operating costs, including loans, equipment and supplies. At the same time, farmers are receiving historically low prices for most major crops.”
Of the $12 billion provided, up to $11 billion will be used for the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program, which provides broad relief to United States row crop farmers who produce barley, chickpeas, corn, cotton, lentils, oats, peanuts, peas, rice, sorghum, soybeans, wheat, canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, sesame, and sunflower. FBA will help address market disruptions, elevated input costs, persistent inflation, and market losses from foreign competitors engaging in unfair trade practices that impede exports. The FBA program applies simple, proportional support to producers using a uniform formula to cover a portion of modeled losses during the 2025 crop year. This national loss average is based on Farm Service Agency (FSA) reported planted acres, Economic Research Service (ERS) cost of production estimates, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) yields and prices, and economic modeling.
Farmers who qualify for the FBA Program can expect payments to be released by Feb. 28, 2026. Eligible farmers should ensure their 2025 acreage reporting is factual and accurate by 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 19. Commodity-specific payment rates will be released by the end of the month. Crop insurance linkage will not be required for the FBA Program, though USDA strongly urges producers to take advantage of the new OBBBA risk management tools to best protect against price risk and volatility in the future.
The remaining $1 billion of the $12 billion in bridge payments will be reserved for commodities not covered in the FBA Program such as specialty crops and sugar, for example. Details including timelines for those payments are still under development and require additional understanding of market impacts and economic needs.
The $12 billion in farmer bridge payments, including those provided through the FBA Program, are authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Charter Act and will be administered by the FSA.
To submit questions, justification for USDA farmer bridge aid, or to request a meeting on farmer bridge aid, producers can reach out to farmerbridge@usda.gov. To read all of USDA’s announcement on this program visit https://gfb.ag/25usdabridgeprogram .
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