USDA is scheduled to release the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program payment rates next week. In anticipation of the official numbers, University of Illinois’s farmdoc Daily rolled out its estimates with payments ranging from $21 per acre for barley to a high of $134 per acre for rice.
The FBA program will provide $12 billion in support to offset losses associated with unfair trade practices. The majority of those dollars, $11 billion, will be used for payments to eligible row crop producers while the remaining $1 billion will go toward specialty crops. Payments will be made to farmers by the end of February 2026.
The formula for figuring payments will be similar to ECAP, says CPA Paul Neiffer. He calculated payments using the mid-year average price. For example, the soybean price last year was $10.20, and this year it’s $10.50. Soybeans might see a reduced rate, but all the other crops, especially wheat and rice, are seeing a 10% to 15% increase, he adds.
“Then I took that difference in the price. So I took the old ECAP number, multiplied it by 110% because we have an extra 10% and then multiplied it by that difference in price,” Neiffer says. “If the price went down, that payment went up a little bit, and if the price went up like it did for soybeans, that price went down.”
Corn farmers will receive the largest share of payments at more than $4.5 billion as farmdoc estimates bridge payments for corn at $46 an acre. However, that still won’t make up for four-year lows in prices and near-record-high input prices, says Matt Frostic, vice president of the National Corn Growers Association.
“We’re looking at $170 [per acre] negative margins in corn this year, which is pretty dramatic. When you couple that with some of the peripheral states where they’ve had disaster the last couple of years due to drought, the grower is in pretty tough shape right now to endure some of this.”
For soybeans, farmdoc shows losses of $83 per acre and an estimated bridge payment of $25 per acre. All told, soybean farmers will receive over $2 billion of the $11 billion allocated to row crop farmers in the program.
Caleb Ragland, president, American Soybean Association, says these payments can’t make up for losing their top export customer, China, due to tariffs and the trade war. He says China accounted for 25% of all soybeans grown in the U.S. in 2024, so these payments leave a gap.
“It would help some, but I think the losses and the pain is much deeper than that, quite frankly,” he says. “We’re in a pretty tough spot on many of our operations.”
Highest Payment Per Acre Goes to Rice Farmers
farmdoc estimates the highest bridge payment for rice farmers at $134 per acre based on losses of $446 per acre. That exceeds estimated losses for rice calculated by the University of Arkansas at $259 an acre. Arkansas farmer Nathan Reed said on a recent episode of “Unscripted” the reason for the discrepancy is because that projection was made in October and rice prices have dropped since then.
“The rice price is over 50¢ less than when that projection was made. The rice price is closer to $300 an acre, and yes, that’s very close, especially when they take every number into account, equipment payments, things such as that, land rent, etc.,” Reed says.
While the assistance is welcome, it can’t stop the systematic bleeding from three or four years of accumulated losses on the farm, he adds.
“As things kind of settle and these bridge payments come in, I think that’s when the pain is going to come. For some people that’s when the banks will look at it and say, well, we can get most of our money back, we might need to just cut them off,” Reed explains.
Big losses continue in the South with cotton at a negative $383 per acre, with a bridge payment of $115. Payments for other crops include peanuts at an estimated $64 per acre, wheat at $39, sorghum at $48 per acre and oats at $92.
