President announces $12 billion in 'bridge' payments for farmers

(Washington, D.C., Dec. 8, 2025) – President Donald J. Trump today announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture will make $12 billion available in one time bridge payments to American farmers in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs.

These bridge payments are intended in part to aid farmers until historic investments from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including reference prices which are set to increase between 10-21% for major covered commodities such as soybeans, corn, and wheat, reach eligible farmers on Oct. 1, 2026.

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 FSA reported planted acres, Economic Research Service cost of production estimates, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates 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; however, 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, though 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 Charter Act and will be administered by the Farm Service Agency.

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.

“President Trump will not let our farmers be left behind, so he directed our team to build a bridge program to see quick relief while the president’s dozens of new trade deals and new market access take effect,” said USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. “The plan we are announcing today ensures American farmers can continue to plan for the next crop year. It is imperative we do what it takes to help our farmers, because if we cannot feed ourselves, we will no longer have a country.”