Category: Policy

As detailed in a previous Southern Ag Today article, the American Relief Act of 2025 was signed into law in December 2024 with the following key provisions:

• funded the government through March 14, 2025;
• extended the 2018 Farm Bill provisions through September 30, 2025; and
• provided the U.S. Department of Agriculture with $30.78 billion to deliver disaster recovery assistance to farmers and livestock producers.  $10 billion was designated for economic losses and the remaining $20 billion was for physical losses.

As we noted in an article on July 3, 2025, sign-up for the economic loss program—the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP)—is underway.  To date, nearly $8 billion has been provided to producers through ECAP.  We also noted that USDA has released approximately $1 billion in Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) payments to affected producers, and enrollment for another $1 billion in ELRP aid for flooding losses is targeted to begin in mid-August. Last week, USDA announced that signup has begun for the highly-anticipated Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) which targets $16 billion in assistance to producers for necessary expenses due to losses of revenue, quality or production of crops due to weather related events in 2023 and 2024. The remainder of this article will focus on SDRP.

Notably, SDRP is being rolled out to producers in two stages.  Stage 1 is providing payments to producers for eligible crop, tree, and vine losses calculated using data already on file with USDA from previously issued Federal crop insurance indemnities and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) payments.  Stage 2 will target uncovered losses, including non-indemnified shallow losses and quality losses, and signup is estimated to begin in mid-September.

Following are a few of the questions we have received and our responses.  While this is intended to serve as educational guidance, it is no substitute for consulting USDA’s SDRP landing page or for contacting your local FSA office as they ultimately are responsible for implementing the program.

1. How do I know if Stage 1 applies to me?  In Stage 1, USDA is using a streamlined, pre-filled application process for eligible crop, tree and vine losses leveraging existing NAP data as well as data on file with RMA for losses covered by certain federal crop insurance policies. If you expected to receive an application but did not, you can also consult the Final Rule (Page 30572) for more details, including the list of losses that aren’t covered. Otherwise, you can consult your local FSA office.

• If I get a pre-filled application for Stage 1, doesn’t that prove that I’m eligible?  No! In an effort to ensure no one is left out, USDA is sending pre-filled applications (as detailed above) regardless of the cause of loss. But, it is up to you to determine if your losses were due to a qualifying disaster event that Congress chose to cover under SDRP (you can find that list here under “Eligibility”). If your losses were due to a qualifying disaster event, you will simply list that event in Block 18 on the SDRP application you receive in the mail.

• Does the loss I list on the SDRP application have to match the loss listed on my crop insurance loss records? In other words, do I need to go to my crop insurance agent to find out what losses were listed on my crop insurance loss forms? Not necessarily. You may have suffered from multiple loss events on the farm, even if all of those did not make it onto your crop insurance loss records.  If you suffered from a qualifying disaster event (see above)—regardless of the loss event listed on your crop insurance records—you can self-certify to that event in Block 18 on your SDRP application. Please note that the FSA county committee will be keeping a close eye on applications to ensure that the loss event you listed is relevant and actually occurred in the county.

• If I had a loss on my farm but it’s not due to one of the “qualifying disaster events” covered by SDRP, shouldn’t I just pick one of the qualifying disaster events from the list and submit my application?  No! While it may be very painful for a producer who had a loss that was due to an ineligible disaster event, the fact remains that Congress chose to cover only certain disaster events. If USDA is not covering your particular disaster event, it’s because Congress did not provide the authority for them to do so.

• What if I suffered from drought but my county did not meet the D2 and D3 thresholds established by Congress?  If you are in a county that does not meet the D2 and D3 thresholds established by Congress (see the list of eligible counties here), you are not eligible to apply for SDRP based on “qualifying drought.” With that said, if you also suffered from another qualifying disaster event (e.g., excessive heat), you can self-certify by listing that loss event in Block 18 on the SDRP application.  Again, note that the FSA county committee will be keeping a close eye on applications to ensure that the loss event you listed is relevant and actually occurred in the county.

• What if I have an error in the pre-filled parts of my application?  Can I just mark them out and make corrections?  No!  USDA has made it clear that any handwritten changes to the pre-filled portions of the application will nullify the application.  If the pre-filled portions are in error, you need to go back to the source (i.e., either your crop insurance agent for crop insurance records or to the local FSA office for NAP records). They can correct the underlying problem and updated applications can be re-printed by your local FSA office.

• My pre-filled application (Block 14) lists my “Estimated SDRP Payment.”  Is that the amount I should expect to see deposited into my account?  As we understand it, that is the gross payment BEFORE both the payment factor of 35% and payment limits are applied.

• Did USDA just make up the 35% factor?  While we don’t know everything that went into determining the factor, consider the following: (1) USDA made clear that progressive factoring (i.e., applying different payment factors based on gender, race, etc—as was done in the previous Administration) would not be used in SDRP; (2) USDA presumably estimated the total expected SDRP payments relative to the total funding available and determined that 35% was appropriate; and (3) they had to ensure that funding was available for producers who have eligible losses in Stage 2.  Notably, if funding is left over after all applications have been submitted, USDA could issue another round of payments to producers.

• Does the payment limit apply to each year separately (i.e., $125,000 for 2023 and $125,000 for 2024) or is it a combined limit?  The payment limit applies separately to both 2023 and 2024.

1. If I receive an SDRP payment, do I have to commit to purchase crop insurance going forward?  Yes, generally, producers receiving aid must maintain crop insurance or NAP coverage for the next two years at 60% or higher, or repay the assistance with interest.

1. Are all states eligible for SDRP?  This round of disaster assistance was somewhat different than the past.  Congress chose to provide assistance in the form of block grants to Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, and Massachusetts. As a result, they are excluded from SDRP but will use state block grants funded by the American Relief Act of 2025 to compensate producers for losses.

We plan to update this as additional information becomes available. Importantly, as noted above, you should use the information in this article simply as educational guidance. For any questions related to your specific application/circumstances or for official guidance on the operation of SDRP, it is important to consult USDA’s SDRP landing page and/or reach out to your local FSA office.

---

Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer. “Supplemental Disaster Relief Program Sign-up Announced.” Southern Ag Today 5(29.4). July 17, 2025. Permalink

As we noted back in December 2024, the American Relief Act provided $30.78 billion in relief for agricultural producers—$10 billion for economic assistance and $20.78 billion for natural disaster relief. 

Signup for the economic assistance—known as the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP)—began on March 19, 2025, and runs through August 15, 2025. Initial ECAP payments were factored by 85% to ensure total program payments do not exceed available funding. If all goes as planned, FSA may issue a second payment in August.

USDA has also started rolling out the $20.78 billion in natural disaster assistance. For example, on May 29, 2025, USDA announced that approximately $1 billion in Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) payments were being issued to affected producers. At this point, anticipation is building for sign-up to begin for the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP). SDRP is the successor to the Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program (WHIP) and the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Recent History of Natural Disaster Relief for Agricultural Producers

Program	Crop Year	Authorizing Statute	Enactment Date
WHIP	2017	P.L. 115-123	2/9/18
WHIP+	2018 & 2019	P.L. 116-20	6/6/19
ERP	2020 & 2021	P.L. 117-43	9/30/21
ERP	2022	P.L. 117-328	12/29/22
SDRP	2023 & 2024	P.L. 118-158	12/21/24

SDRP will provide assistance to producers for necessary expenses related to losses of revenue, quality or production of crops (including milk, on-farm stored commodities, crops prevented from planting, and harvested adulterated wine grapes), trees, bushes, and vines, as a consequence of droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freeze, including a polar vortex, smoke exposure, and excessive moisture occurring in calendar years 2023 and 2024. While the details will be released by USDA once approved by OMB, following are a few key observations:

• Sign-up Date. USDA has announced a target date of July 7, 2025, for sign-up to begin. While that date may slip a bit as OMB finalizes its review, all indications are that a sign-up announcement is imminent. 

• Funding. While $20.78 billion was reserved for natural disaster assistance, Congress earmarked $2 billion for livestock (via ELRP), and block grants to states for hurricane relief must also be funded from that total. As a result, the amount available for SDRP will be significantly less than $20.78 billion.  

• Factoring. When compared against projected losses, there is virtually no question that USDA will have to implement a payment factor.  Recall, the Biden Administration noted that—had they implemented a flat payment factor for ERP 2022—it would have been 27%. Their solution at the time was to implement progressive factoring instead, an approach that U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has repeatedly rejected. So, while we know there will not be progressive factoring, we do not know what the flat factor will be. Regardless, we’d argue that you shouldn’t get too hung up on the payment factor. Why? USDA will simply estimate projected payments, compare it to available funding, and set the factor accordingly. In other words, if USDA’s approach with SDRP is generous in calculating payments, then it will require a more significant factor to make sure it doesn’t exceed available funding. The most important part to remember is that USDA will be allocating a historic amount of disaster funding in the months ahead…and any payment factor will be applied uniformly to all program applicants.

• Sequence.  USDA has noted that SDRP sign-up will focus first on those with indemnified losses. USDA is targeting September 15, 2025, to begin sign-up for those with uncovered losses (i.e., shallow losses) including producers without crop insurance, and quality losses.

We will provide additional details once SDRP is officially released.

---

Fischer, Bart L., and Joe Outlaw. “Sign-up for Natural Disaster Relief Beginning Soon.” Southern Ag Today 5(27.4). July 3, 2025. Permalink

We often are asked by the media about the size of and need for government assistance that is provided to U.S. farmers when something goes wrong (e.g., bad prices, yields or both). The first thing we do is highlight that the safety net provided for by Congress is designed to offset some – but not all – of the risks faced by farmers.  It might sound like semantics, but in the policy world…words matter.

The rest of the conversation generally involves talking about uncertainty in U.S. agriculture.  Rather than provide an exhaustive list here, let’s just focus on the three primary determinants of profitability: prices, yields and costs.

• U.S. farm prices are determined by world supply and demand for the crop, the price of its substitutes, and policy.  What type of policy?  First, U.S. producers must compete against producers that are heavily subsidized by the governments of our competitors around the world.  Second, the trade policies of those countries (such as tariffs or other non-tariff barriers to trade) impact prices received by U.S. producers as well. Third, monetary policy in the U.S. impacts interest rates that farmers have to pay to finance their crops, land and equipment and exchange rates that tend to make our exports relatively more expensive than our competitors.  Other types of policies that can impact U.S. crop prices are conservation, biofuels, taxes, and more recently health regulations such as those listed in the MAHA report that questions the health impacts of certain agricultural products (e.g., sugar) or bi-products (e.g., vegetable oils).
  
• U.S. farm yields are primarily impacted by weather…enough said about that.
  
• U.S. crop production costs are impacted by the supply and demand of each of the individual inputs, from seed, fertilizer, and chemicals to equipment, farmland, and labor, among others. Increasingly, for many producers, these purchases also must be financed at elevated interest rates. In addition, all of the policy areas discussed under farm prices above can also impact crop production costs.  

These conversations usually conclude with an explanation that, even though there is a lot of uncertainty, U.S. farmers understand how the forces of supply and demand impact crop prices and input costs and are accustomed to dealing with erratic weather. However, it’s the uncertainty that comes from policy that keeps them up at night.  In our minds, the government safety net helps reduce some of their and their lender’s uncertainty regarding the ability to remain viable and able to try again next year in search of profits.

---

Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer. “Dealing With Uncertainty in Agriculture.” Southern Ag Today 5(25.4). June 19, 2025. Permalink

While the farm bill debate in the U.S. Senate has tended to be rather bipartisan in nature, that has not been the case in the U.S. House of Representatives, at least not in recent memory. Invariably, at some point in the farm bill debate, the minority party in the House will accuse the majority party of “partisanship” that will “bring about the end of the bipartisan coalition needed to pass a farm bill.” In this article, we examine these claims in the context of voting history on the farm bill in the House over the last 40 years.

As noted in Figure 1, the 1985 and 1990 Farm Bills both had a significant share of minority (i.e., Republican) votes on the House version of the farm bill along with the conference agreement. With the Democrats in the minority for the 1996 Farm Bill – after having been in the majority in the House for 40 years – they accounted for just 20% of the “yes” votes on the House version of the farm bill but ultimately accounted for one-third of the “yes” votes on the conference report. The 2002 Farm Bill was very bipartisan in nature with the minority (i.e., Democrats) accounting for roughly half the “yes” votes on both the House version and conference report.

The significant departure came in the 2008 Farm Bill when Democrats regained control of the House.  For the 2008 Farm Bill, the minority (i.e., Republicans) accounted for just 8% of the “yes” votes on the House version of the farm bill. Despite the partisan nature of the House version of the farm bill, Republicans ultimately accounted for 32% of the “yes” votes on the conference agreement. That dynamic persisted (and became even more pronounced) in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, with the minority (i.e., Democrats) not voting for the House version of the bill in either case but accounting for 35% and 51% of the “yes” votes on the conference report, respectively. Notably, for the 2018 Farm Bill, more Democrats than Republican voted “yes” on the conference report, following the mid-term elections that resulted in Democrats retaking the House.

Bottom line: accusations of “partisanship” threatening to “end the bipartisan coalition needed to pass a farm bill” generally falls on deaf ears as partisanship around the House version of the farm bill has become standard operating procedure, largely starting with the 2008 Farm Bill. Despite the rocky process in the House, the final version of the farm bill reported out of the conference between the House and Senate continues to be widely bipartisan.

Figure 1.  Voting History on the Farm Bill, U.S. House of Representatives a/Passed by voice vote

Farm Bill	Minority Party in House	Minority Share of House Seats	Minority Share  of Yes Votes (House-Drafted Farm Bill)	Minority Share  of Yes Votes (Conference Report)
Food Security Act of 1985	Republican	42%	35%	40%
Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990	Republican	40%	a/	37%
Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996	Democrat	47%	20%	33%
Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002	Democrat	49%	48%	49%
Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008	Republican	46%	8%	32%
Agricultural Act of 2014	Democrat	46%	0%	35%
Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018	Democrat	45%	0%	51%

---

Fischer, Bart L., and Joe Outlaw. “Just How Bipartisan are Farm Bills?” Southern Ag Today 5(23.4). June 5, 2025. Permalink

While far from over, the House version of the President’s reconciliation package—referred to by the President as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”—contains significant improvements to the farm safety net.  We have previously discussed in Southern Ag Today the dire need for an improved farm safety net for this crop year, either from a farm bill or through this process.  As we write this, House leadership is still working to secure votes for passage.  Once that happens, the Senate will need to pass their version of the bill.  Assuming the House and Senate pass different bills, the differences would need to be reconciled and the conferenced bill would need to again be passed by both the House and the Senate before going to the President to be signed into law.  This sounds daunting, but one of the key elements of reconciliation (and why it has been used by both parties) is that the Senate only needs a simple majority (51) to pass the bill, whereas a normal bill would require 60 votes. 

The House reconciliation bill includes quite a few changes to the current 2018 Farm Bill that has been extended through September 30, 2025.  In terms of the farm safety net, the two primary commodity programs—Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC)—are extended through the 2031 crop year.  Most importantly, reference prices are increased 10% to 20% depending upon the commodity.  Reference prices would also increase 0.5% annually beginning in 2031, recognizing the need to keep up with inflation in the future.

The ARC coverage guarantee would be increased from 86% of the benchmark to 90%, and the payment band would increase from 10% to 12.5%.  The first change would make payments trigger sooner, and the second change would increase the amount of the payments.  Loan rates for most commodities would also be increased.

Combined payment limits for ARC and PLC would be increased from $125,000 to $155,000 and would be adjusted annually for inflation. The bill would also eliminate the LLC penalty (i.e., eliminate the payment limit on pass-through entities while maintaining the payment limit on owners of the entity) as previously highlightedin Southern Ag Today.

Premium assistance for crop insurance would see increases for individual yield or revenue coverage across all coverage levels.  The Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) would also see an increase in premium subsidy from 65% to 80%.

The House bill also contains language to allocate a maximum of 30 million additional base acres to producers who have been planting more acres than they have base acres on farms. 

The bill has many other agriculture related provisions, but those listed above—if enacted—would strengthen the producer safety net beginning with the 2025 crop.

---

Outlaw, Joe, and Bart L. Fischer. “Much Needed Producer Assistance in the House Reconciliation Bill.” Southern Ag Today 5(21.4). May 22, 2025. Permalink