Grateful for aid, farmers hope for longer-term solution

Spring is yet far off, but the $12 billion aid package that President Donald Trump announced Dec. 8 came not a moment too soon for farmers planning for spring planting.

Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation farmer and president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said he and his fellow farmers are grateful for the federal help. But he called it a small bandage on a big wound.

“Farmers have had a tremendous amount of damage due to chaotic trade policies,” Lehman said. “It’s right to try to compensate farmers for that, but the damage is very, very deep, and it’s both short-term and long-term.”

Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program rolled out Monday will provide emergency grants to counter what they identified as rising production costs and market instability. But farmers say the federal government is also to blame for their predicament. They argue the Trump administration initiated a trade war that hit farmers twice—raising costs for imported farm equipment and input products (seed, fertilizer, chemicals) while lowering prices for their products as foreign buyers shunned U.S. exports.

Agriculture exports began declining before Trump instituted new tariffs this year. U.S. producers exported $175 billion of agricultural products in 2024, 10% less than in 2022. Mexico became the top importer of U.S. goods as China bought more products, especially soybeans and corn, from South America. China’s March announcement of higher tariffs matching U.S. restrictions rattled farmers, even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture now expects exports to be nearly on par with last year.

“The last couple of years have progressively gotten worse,” said Paul Kanning, who grows wheat, lentil, canola, barley, and other crops on 2,800 acres in northeastern Montana. “Inflation and tariffs have driven up input costs.”

The bulk of the new financial assistance—$11 billion—will provide one-time payments to farmers who grow wheat, corn, cotton, barley, soybeans, lentils, and other row crops. The remaining $1 billion will go to farmers who grow specialty crops like honey, sugar, or fruits picked by hand, such as strawberries. Farmers have until Dec. 19 to validate the amount of acreage they planted this year. The USDA will estimate the amount of losses farmers suffered for each crop and disburse grants by Feb. 28. The department’s Farm Service Agency hasn’t specified the amount farmers will receive, but payments will be capped at $155,000 per person or legal entity and limited to applicants with an adjusted gross income of less than $900,000.

Beginning in January, the federal government canceled or paused contracts with farmers made through the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. Farmers who paid for conservation projects and were promised reimbursement were caught off guard by the cancellations, according to Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Programs that funded specialty grower access to local and regional markets, schools, and institutions were slashed early in the year under Department of Government Efficiency cuts, and the remaining ones were paused during the six-week government shutdown this fall.

“We’ve never seen that before, particularly the scale that we saw this year,” Lavender said. “It injected a shot of hypercharged uncertainty, from trade policy shifts to canceled contracts, terminated contracts, frozen funding for tens of thousands of farmers.”

Agriculture insiders warned of the current problems almost a year ago. In February, North Dakota State University’s Extension office predicted low or negative returns on farmers’ investments this year.

“Bankers don’t loan money out when you say, ‘I’m going to take your money and go lose it all and then lose a little more, and I won’t be sure I’ll be able to pay it back,’” said Kanning, a fourth-generation farmer who returned home after serving 20 years in the Air Force.

This is the third emergency farm aid under Trump tied to trade retaliation. In 2018 and 2019, the USDA paid corn, cotton, dairy, hog, sorghum, soybean, and wheat producers through the Market Facilitation Program. The agency also purchased hundreds of millions of dollars of food from producers, including foreign-owned corporations, and distributed the products through nutrition assistance programs. According to Lehman, that aid largely benefited the largest farm operators and contributed to small- and medium-scale farmers getting bought out by bigger ones.

“We know that this aid package won’t make farmers whole,” Lehman said. “We need to reform our trade approach so that farmers can reasonably sell what they grow into the marketplace fairly, both domestically and foreign.”

Farmers are notoriously land rich but cash poor. Land and equipment costs have risen faster than the rate of inflation since 2021, according to North Dakota State University data, and lower market prices only exacerbate the problem. Farmers have resorted to storing their harvested crops longer, waiting for prices to rise or the bankers to call their loans.

“The bottom line has been getting worse and worse,” Kanning said. “We don’t get to set prices on the stuff we buy and the stuff we sell. We’re getting close to a breaking point right now.”

Lavender, who advocates for policies that will keep small- and mid-sized farms viable, hopes lawmakers will spend as much effort on long-term solutions as they do on ad-hoc disaster assistance. He noted the latest stimulus has been described as a bridge to next year’s planting season and potentially higher prices for farmers.

“I don’t buy that argument,” said Lavender. “It’s been made before, and I don’t see it having gotten us out of the same cycle. We’ve got to rethink how we’re supporting farmers with federal policy so that they’re off this treadmill.”

Instead, he recommends more loan support and micro grants, a foreclosure moratorium, and revenue-based support where farmers receive support tied to their specific losses.

Still, even farmers who acknowledge the continued bailouts aren’t sustainable say they come at a needed time. “I think almost every farmer that you would talk to would say we don’t like this,” added Kanning. “We need it, but this isn’t why we got into farming.”

The early December announcement was timely even with spring planting four to five months away.

“I had to make a decision a week ago whether I was going to buy canola seed or not,” said Kanning. “I made that decision based upon the assumption that I’m going to lose money on everything. But if I wait until February or March to buy my seed, it’s a lot more expensive.”

—with additional reporting by Carolina Lumetta in Washington