Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
press@sustainableagriculture.net
Tel. 347.563.6408

Comment: Farm Assistance Framework Signals Need and Opportunity to Build More Robust Support 

Washington, DC, January 15, 2026 –  Today, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) issued the following comment in response to the House Agriculture Committee Minority’s unveiling of a farm assistance framework, attributable to Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director.

“The past year has brought unprecedented uncertainty, pushing countless farmers and ranchers to the brink. The Farm and Family Relief Act gets the urgency of this moment right – robust financial relief is long overdue. NSAC urges Congressional leaders to build on this framework toward an outcome that delivers for farmers and families. This includes making sure any financial assistance is available to all farmers who need it, keeping farmers on the land by providing additional loan support, preventing foreclosures, and offering broad eligibility to actively engaged farmers. Still, this immediate financial relief is not enough to break the cycle: we also need investments that build reliable domestic markets and expand access to conservation practices that help farmers reduce persistently high input costs.”

In November 2025, NSAC published Keeping Farmers on the Land, an in-depth analysis of the current challenges facing farmers and ranchers and the solutions needed to support them in the immediate and long term. NSAC continues to advocate for Congressional farm financial assistance that includes these comprehensive solutions.

###

About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. 

Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

The post Comment: Farm Assistance Framework Signals Need and Opportunity to Build More Robust Support  appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

Associate Director of Communications and Development

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net, 347.563.6408

—

Contact: Jessica Manly

Communications and Digital Advocacy Director

National Young Farmers Coalition

press@youngfarmers.org, 518-643-3564 x 722

Joint Release: Fleeting Relief for Some Farmers, But ‘Bridge’ Payments Lack Long-Term Solutions

Washington, DC, December 9, 2025 – Yesterday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced limited details of the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program, which will make $12 billion available in one-time payments predominantly for row crop farmers. The announcement comes at the conclusion of a tumultuous 2025, during which rising production costs, low crop prices, diminished market access, and unprecedented instability in federal partnership converged to push many farmers to the brink. 

“By nearly any measure, 2025 has presented American farmers with a set of unprecedented challenges. The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program provides some initial relief, but is insufficient on its own. It effectively excludes most specialty crop growers and does little to prevent the loss of farms or farmland due to acute financial hardship. Congress must act quickly to keep farmers on the land – offering loan support and cash-flow assistance, increasing market access, and investing in input-reducing conservation practices – coupled with a commitment to overhauling the safety net and building out financial resilience,” said Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director.

The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program will direct over 92% of payments to a handful of commodities, including corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, wheat, and soybeans. Roughly $1 billion will be reserved for other crops, including specialty crops, though a timeline for those payments is not yet available. USDA reportedly confirmed that FBA eligibility will be limited to those individuals or legal entities with an adjusted gross income below $900,000, and payments will be capped at $155,000 per recipient.

“Farmers know how to roll with the punches and navigate the unexpected, from weather impacts to pest and disease pressures and shifts in market access, whether local or international. At the same time, farmers expect a certain level of confidence in how our public agriculture systems are governed and maintained. The layered and persistent uncertainty of 2025 is pushing many farmers to the limits of what their operations can withstand. The collective government response to these conditions needs to be robust, multi-faceted, and appropriately targeted. This means that the payments announced this week must be followed by additional and expedient efforts to keep farmers on the land and to improve the farm safety net, leaving annual bailouts as cautionary historical context rather than ongoing policy,” said David Howard, Young Farmers Policy Development Director 

Producers will not be required to enroll in crop insurance to be eligible for FBA payments. While income limits and payment caps have been clarified in press reports, it is unclear whether ‘actively engaged farming’ requirements will be applied to eligible recipients. USDA will use a national loss average to calculate payments, which is unlikely to adequately account for geographic differences in the market conditions that producers face. 

The program will be rolled out on an incredibly tight timeframe – USDA has set a deadline of December 19 for farmers to ensure their 2025 acreage reporting numbers are accurate. Commodity specific payment calculations are to be completed and announced by the end of December, with checks flowing to producers by February 28, 2026. This short timeline is warranted, but may prove difficult amidst USDA staff shortages – the Farm Service Agency has lost 1,200 staff since January 2025. Under these circumstances, it is critical for USDA to ensure accurate and equitable program delivery – and to avoid the “significant improper payments” that have plagued previous assistance programs.

Looking beyond this current effort, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Young Farmers Coalition strongly urge USDA and Congress to come together and work on additional solutions to repair and expand the farm safety net to all farmers. As Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins stated in yesterday’s announcement, “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”. We must ensure that across the country, people producing the food we eat have adequate certainty to plan the future of their agricultural operations and provide a reasonable quality of life for their families.

### 

About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC):

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

—

The National Young Farmers Coalition (Young Farmers) is a national grassroots network of young farmers changing policy and shifting power to equitably resource the new generation of working farmers. Visit Young Farmers on the web at youngfarmers.org.

The post Joint Release: Fleeting Relief for Some Farmers, But ‘Bridge’ Payments Lack Long-Term Solutions appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) traces its earliest roots to the farm crisis of the 1980s, when cycles in the global economy and federal agricultural policy combined to push farmers losing their farms into the national spotlight. The 330,000 farm families who lost their farms between 1978 and 1992 were, unfortunately, not the last. The total number of farms has continued to steadily decrease since then, with the loss of mid-sized farms at a particularly concerning rate.

Within the past couple of years, there has been mounting evidence suggesting a tipping point for farmers and ranchers not unlike that of the 1980s. Today, high production costs, unstable markets, and low crop prices driven by uncertain export markets and overproduction have converged to create an economic climate in which farmers’ livelihoods are threatened. Earlier this year, hundreds of farmers – reportedly more than 500 – attended a single meeting to ask for help. Moments of farm crisis – like the one we are in now – stand out from the decades-long drumbeat of farm losses across agriculture.

While the current threat of farm loss is driven by global economies and issues far outside of farmers’ control, the fate of farm families is and will continue to be determined by the structure of US federal farm programs. Agriculture will always have disruptive events, from market disruptions and natural disasters to pandemics and pests. Yet the structure of federal policy determines the impact of those disruptions on farm families, their communities, the land, and the country. Too often federal programs have been structured to amplify the benefits of scale, while further eroding the strength of our communities.

Keeping farmers on the land is in NSAC’s DNA. For decades, NSAC has championed policies that promote markets and production systems that build farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Today, federal policy can still be a vehicle to build a truly sustainable, just agricultural economy – one that sustains farm families and livelihoods, protects natural resources, and supports communities nationwide. 

This blog post offers an in-depth examination of the current state of the US farm economy, the impacts of a down farm economy, and the federal policy solutions necessary to put the US agricultural economy – and the farmers, ranchers, and communities who depend on it – on firm footing for the future.

• The Current Farm Economy
• Impacts to Individuals, Families, and Communities
• Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions
• What Comes Next

The Current Farm Economy

The US farm economy can be exceedingly complex to navigate. Nationwide, there are more than 1.9 million farms. These farms – from rural communities to urban centers and everywhere in between – are incredibly diverse in almost every way imaginable. 

The overwhelming majority of US crop production is represented by just two commodities – corn and soybeans – which were planted on roughly 175 million total acres in 2023. Broadening the scope slightly, wheat (50 million acres) and cotton (10 million acres) enter the picture. Beyond row crops, there are hundreds of thousands of specialty crop farmers in the US, growing almost every imaginable variety of fruit, nut, and vegetable. In 2023, 4.3 million acres were devoted to vegetables and just over 6 million acres in orchard production. Meanwhile, 568,972 farms – roughly 30% of all US farms – specialized in cattle or dairy production in 2022. Another 19% of US farms specialize in other livestock: hogs and pigs, poultry and eggs, sheep and goats, and beyond.

Each farmer must build their own business model – factoring in their unique scale, type of production, and market – to achieve success and longevity. Each of these factors carries with it its own risks and opportunities for growth and stability. Consequently, it’s important to note that farmers can have significantly divergent experiences within the same farm economy. Some may be particularly well positioned to navigate a challenging economy thanks to their strategy or even where they farm, while others may have an entirely different experience.

Yet all farmers – whether they are raising livestock or growing row crops, specialty crops, or even both – face similar hurdles: namely, production costs, crop prices, and market access. 

Production costs

One of the most significant costs nearly all farmers face is for inputs – items produced off farm – that they deem necessary to their farm’s success. Some of the most common production costs include fertilizers, pesticides, and seeds. Determined in large part by global market conditions, fertilizer and pesticide prices are difficult, if not impossible to control with domestic policy, and recent turbulence in most global markets has only exacerbated the problem. In 2024, the cost to farmers of these combined crop inputs (chemicals, fertilizers, and seeds) rose by nearly $20 billion dollars (comparing 2024 to 2016). During that time period, pesticide production expenses jumped 42%, seed expenses jumped 26%, and fertilizer, lime, and soil conditioner expenses rose 44%. During that same time window, the amount of US acres in farms declined significantly, signalling that dramatic increases in production expenses are not being driven by expanded acreage. 

Crop prices

While production costs have risen significantly in recent years, nationwide, farmers are also facing low crop prices. Since the peak highs in 2021 and 2022, crop prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton have all fallen significantly – corn, soybeans, and wheat are all down more than 50% per bushel, while cotton is down more than 40%. On the back of these low prices, total crop cash receipts – including receipts from farm products like fruits and nuts – are forecast to decrease $6.1 billion (2.5 percent) in 2025. When focusing on some of the most prevalent row crops, we see that the combined cash receipts are even lower – corn, soybeans and wheat are forecast to fall by $6.8 billion in 2025.

Similarly, many specialty crop prices have either dropped or failed to keep pace with the rising production costs highlighted above. Cash receipts for vegetables and melons are forecast to be $520 million lower in 2025 than in 2024 and nearly $1B lower than 2023. At the same time, specialty crop producers have faced increasing production and labor costs. Specialty crop farms also have the highest labor costs as a portion of total cash expenses and are particularly affected by rising labor costs and labor shortages. 

The factors driving low prices are, of course, multifaceted. Farm policies and economic structures incentivize maximizing yield, which often result in overproduction of major US crops – corn, soybeans, wheat – creating a price glut that quickly and severely depresses prices for producers. Similarly, unstable domestic and international market access also impacts the price that farmers receive.

Market access

The US agricultural economy is heavily reliant on international markets. From livestock to grains, commodity production in the US has long exceeded domestic demand for the majority of major commodities. Because domestic demand is exceeded, the US agricultural economy relies on – and is exposed to – often volatile international markets. Sudden changes to trade rules and tariffs have made our usual buyers – like China and Argentina – nervous. Because they cannot reliably count on us, they are now buying from other countries instead. This has introduced significant uncertainty for farmers about markets and dropped crop prices – soybean sales are down 23% from the same time last year because of lower prices. While recently announced trade deals could shift this trend, legitimate uncertainties remain.

Instability of Federal Partnership

Finally, it is worth stating that 2025 has brought unprecedented instability in federal partnership. Although stability is essential for farm planning, farmers have experienced unexpected contract cuts and unpredictable, abrupt trade policy shifts. In January 2025, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began freezing and even terminating the lawfully held contracts of farmers and farmer-serving organizations, disrupting planning for the 2025 planting season.

From commodity farmers selling into international markets to specialty growers selling at a market down the street, collectively, these freezes and terminations have been felt across all scales and types of American agriculture. Each farmer develops their own unique financing strategy, and federal programs can be an essential piece in the puzzle to demonstrate stable income for the year. But when federal contracts are frozen or terminated with little warning, it not only casts doubt on government dependability, it ultimately undercuts the ability of federal programs to serve as a stable support for farmers of all scales. The damage is much more extensive than just the loss of that specific income. Sudden loss of any source of federal support can impact a producer’s ability to work with their lenders to secure or maintain necessary lines of operating credit for the growing season.

This uncertainty has permeated federal programs throughout 2025, impacting programs that help farmers enter new domestic markets, adapt to natural disasters and add-value to their crop, and expand access to USDA programs and services. It has even jeopardized popular farmer-led programs as recently as September 2025.  Over the summer, Congress passed and the President signed a budget reconciliation bill. This bill cut billions in food assistance and funneled that savings toward commodity payments, all while programs that support the vast majority of farmers and rural communities are excluded from the bill entirely. On top of all of this, USDA has lost nearly 20,000 employees since January while simultaneously proposing a massive department-wide reorganization without any input from farmers – both of which serve to undermine USDA’s support for farmers.

Sum of the Parts

When the tide of these baseline factors turns bad, keeping farmers in business – and on the land – requires a federal response that is finely tuned to the full range of farm and farmer needs.

By nearly any measure 2025 has presented American farmers with an array of serious challenges that, collectively, threaten farm viability nationwide. In fact, a recent survey of agricultural lenders indicates that less than half of US farmers are likely to be profitable in 2026. Yet, this moment of farm financial crisis is not particularly unique, and is just one in a long line of past and future disruptions. The ongoing loss of farms and the difficulty for new farmers to enter farming demonstrate where farm safety net programs have gaps, and how these programs are built to pick winners and losers. Farms going out of business is not a necessity of these disruptions, or even a function of disruptions, but a demonstration that federal safety net programs are not universal.

Over time, intentional decisions made by policy leaders have pushed many farmers toward narrow production choices that often make it difficult to diversify or explore new markets without sacrificing stability. Simultaneously, suffocating consolidation – among but not limited to input producers and livestock processors – leaves farmers squeezed on both ends. Taken together, these dynamics prevent many farmers – whether they grow crops, livestock, or both – from creating a business that can better buffer against shocks, and leaves them highly exposed to risk. 

Ultimately, in this model of agriculture, some years can be good, yet many years are not, even with government support: between 2017 and 2022, more than 140,000 farms were shuttered. Of those, 128,000 (91%) were smaller than 1,000 acres and 82% were smaller than 500 acres. Farms over 5,000 acres were the only category that increased – by over 5% – during this period. And no matter their size, farmers themselves faced “incredible financial, legal, and emotional stress.” Unfortunately, the impacts don’t end there.

Impacts

When the agricultural economy suffers, farmers suffer – ultimately, leading farmers and ranchers out of business. When a farm goes out of business, individuals, families, and communities are impacted, first and foremost as people. Rural communities have alarming rates of mental illness, depression, and suicide. Furthermore, farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and the suicide rate has increased by 46% in rural America in the last 20 years.

The loss of farms also exacerbates land consolidation. While farm sector consolidation may carry some efficiencies in the aggregate, unchecked consolidation creates a fragile farm economy that is exceedingly expensive for taxpayers and siphons vitality from farming communities.  Data from USDA’s most recent Census of Agriculture continues to show a long-term, concerning trend of more land held by ever fewer farms. As farms go out of business, that land is often subject to development pressure, threatening to permanently remove it from agricultural production. If the land stays in production, it is often bought by a neighbor or corporate investor. Over time, this simple process leaves more and more land in the hands of fewer and fewer farmers. With fewer farms – oftentimes not owned by the farmer themself – the economic diversity and resilience of American agriculture is diminished, leaving it more vulnerable to shocks and dependent on federal payments.

Last but not least, during challenging economic times, not all farmers are impacted equally. Compared to established farmers, new and beginning farmers tend to have less capital on hand, making it more difficult to absorb and survive economic shocks like those presented in 2025. This fact threatens an entire generation of new farmers unless we act swiftly.

Comprehensive and Proactive Solutions

Clearly, farming is a challenging enterprise. Consequently, much of federal food and agriculture policy is rightly structured around supporting farmers when times are tough. The farm safety net – including federal crop insurance, commodity support programs, and disaster assistance programs – is an essential pathway for farmers to manage risk.

While the increased farm subsidies included in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill may offer some farmers short-term relief, relying solely on commodity support programs is not a durable solution to farmers’ financial challenges, in part because the current farm safety net has significant gaps in coverage and efficiency. Moreover, previous farm bill efforts, including the 2018 Farm Bill, proved that simply increasing subsidies has failed to stabilize the farm economy over the long term, leaving producers vulnerable once again. 

Yet even if ideally constructed, the farm safety net is just one aspect of building a thriving agricultural economy. Federal policy must holistically promote markets and invest in production systems that build all farmers’ autonomy and self-determination and lessen their vulnerability to disasters. Ultimately, we cannot afford to continue looking only at short-term solutions while ignoring the warning signs of longer term structural issues.

Rather, our immediate goal must be to keep farms in business now, coupled with a commitment to overhauling the safety net and building out financial resilience. While we face economic signals of farm distress similar to the 1980s, it is time for a fundamental change in how the US responds to those signals. To keep farmers on the land, it’s imperative.

Below, NSAC offers a non-exhaustive set of policy solutions as a starting point for what is needed in both the immediate and near term. Given the diversity of American agriculture, policy solutions may not apply to every farmer and rancher. For example, some may be tailored to commodity crop producers or livestock producers, whereas others are tailored toward specialty crop growers.

Collectively, these solutions prioritize keeping farms in business in the short term and building farm financial independence, self determination, and the ability to weather all nature of disruptions in the long term. These solutions – which reflect the importance of farms at all scales and of all products – prioritize farmers’ entrepreneurship, stewardship, and connection to their community while reducing dependence on taxpayer funds. We encourage Congress and USDA to utilize the full range of tools at their disposal, including government procurement, marketing, regulatory and granting programs, to increase farm viability in both the short and long terms.

The solutions are structured as follows:

• Immediate Needs
  • Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief
  • Rental Payments for Marginal Land
  • Enhanced Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices
  • Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

• Near-Term Needs
  • Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers
  • Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform
  • Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains
  • Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

The solutions offered in this section are arranged as indicated above based on the immediacy necessary to keep farmers on the land. Immediate solutions include cash-flow and farm loan assistance, short-term contracts to retire marginal land, and stronger, more reliable markets. Near-term solutions include land access for beginning farmers, increasing market access for meat and poultry producers, comprehensive federal food procurement reform, and more.

Immediate Needs

Farm Loans, Cash Flow Assistance, and Revenue-Based Relief

USDA must provide immediate and near-term relief for all producers to ensure no farms or farmland are lost due to acute financial hardship. The structure of how this support is delivered is vital to ensure that no farms are lost, and farmland is not consolidated further into a diminishing number of larger operations. To ensure that all farms facing financial stress receive the support they need, USDA should:

• Provide loan support to any producer struggling to meet their next payment installment in order to prevent farm loan defaults. 
• Offer cash-flow assistance programs for producers specifically unable to meet payments due to interruptions or challenges in their cash-flow.
• Implement additional assistance payments with broad eligibility and payments administered directly to farmers calculated based on a farm’s revenue, rather than by crop and acreage, to ensure all farms can fairly participate in such a program.

• Ensure all funding goes to active farmers running the operation, not investors or non-operating landowners.
• Allow the use of Farm Service Agency (FSA) Direct Farm Ownership loans for refinancing other debt. 
• Require preferred guaranteed lenders to obtain FSA concurrence before initiating any foreclosure or asset liquidation activities for distressed borrowers.
• Authorize future loan assistance to borrowers who previously received debt forgiveness.
• Make USDA’s Distressed Borrower Set-Aside Program permanent.
• Increase the lifetime debt forgiveness threshold from $300,000 to $600,000 to align with the Direct Farm Ownership loan limit.
• Increase the microloan limit from $50,000 to $100,000 to make this key, streamlined financial tool more useful for a greater number of farms in filling financial gaps.

Rental Payments for Marginal Land

During extended periods of crop prices below cost of production, or exceptional market turbulence, USDA should provide producers with a stable source of income in exchange for conservation value. In this challenging farm economy, this short term source of guaranteed income will afford producers the chance to explore opportunities for new markets, diversified cash crop rotations, or a strategic sale of land. USDA should: 

• Provide short term contracts offering annual rental payments to producers who place marginal land in their operation into perennial cover. 
• Offer a maximum contract length of 3-years.
• Authorize USDA to enroll up to 30 million acres nationwide.
• Offer producers optional support for making profitable changes to their farm business on expiring contracted acres:
  • Offer financial support for business planning services to aid producers in building a value-added component to their farm business.
  • Provide organic technical assistance (TA) for those seeking to transition contracted land into organic production and obtain certification.
  • Allow for construction of infrastructure to support management-intensive rotational grazing on enrolled acres when they are returned to production.
  • Include a 1-year extension of rental payments to the contract holder should they sell contracted acres to a beginning farmer or rancher at the end of the contract.

Dedicated Support for Input-Reducing Conservation Practices

Commitment to soil health-building conservation practices offers a clear pathway to reduced production costs – namely by reducing fertilizer applications – and increased profits per acre over time. USDA should target support to producers eager to adopt conservation practices that significantly reduce the total amount of fertilizer they require, leaving farm businesses far more resilient to spikes in fertilizer prices. Congress should:

• Provide a large, one-time, targeted infusion of funding to working lands conservation programs, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), requiring that:
  • The majority of funds must be used for Comprehensive Nutrient Management Planning (CNMP) on a wide variety of farms and all facilitating practices necessary to implement such plans.
  • CNMPs should be designed to achieve a reduction to <60% of current rates or <60% of LGU recommended rates for total fertilizer applied across the farm within the life of the plan.
  • A portion of the funding is used to hire NRCS staff capable of writing CNMPs and designing facilitating practices.

Similarly structured investments could also be provided, aiding producers in reducing their reliance on additional inputs like herbicides and pesticides.

Stronger, Reliable Markets for American Farmers 

Reliable markets, whether down the road or across an ocean, are foundational to farmers’ success. This is particularly true during a period of high production and labor costs and relatively lower prices. On the heels of the abrupt cancellation of domestic market initiatives earlier this year, federal policy must play an essential role in fostering the development of new, more robust markets. USDA should:

• Enter into cooperative agreements with states to promote state purchasing and management of contracts with local supply chains to fulfill the annual needs of local, federally funded nutrition programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and The Emergency Food Assistance Program, that are typically managed by USDA commodity procurement. 
• Invest additional funds in new market opportunities for small and mid-size farming operations by awarding states multi-year funding to partner with local businesses and networks to purchase locally produced specialty crops, dairy, and protein to distribute to food insecure communities.     
• Promote increased connectivity between schools and local farmers by authorizing a voluntary pathway that would allow schools the flexibility to use a portion of their school meal entitlement funding to purchase foods directly from farmers in their regions.
• Expand outreach for the Cooperative Interstate Shipment programs footprint to new states in order to expand markets for producers and processors. 

Near-Term Needs

Prioritize the Next Generation of Farmers

During a farm crisis, beginning farmers are often the most at risk. In these moments, the transition of the farm to the next generation can be an important tool to keep the farm in the family’s hands, and both are critical to keeping the land in agriculture. Facilitating a farm transition to a beginning farmer protects the land from development, and maintains the farm as an opportunity for a new generation of farmers to build a future and raise their children on the land. To keep existing early-career farmers on the land and to facilitate farm transitions to the next generation of farmers, USDA should:

• Provide funding for direct assistance and services at FSA to help the next generation of farmers and ranchers afford and acquire land by covering closing costs and down payments; capitalize infrastructure and site improvements; and acquire business technical assistance and farm viability training.
• Prioritize FSA projects that provide direct financial assistance to producers, involve collaborative networks or partnerships, and facilitate transition of farmland from existing to new producers.
• Waive farm management experience eligibility requirements for loan applications where the farm is being transitioned either within the extended family or to a current farm employee.
• Expand access to the Down Payment Loan Program (DPLP), especially for borrowers for whom the program will increase loan feasibility and loan approval, provide a 2-year delay in the start of DPLP repayment or repayment alignment with the new enterprise’s anticipated cash flow, and make down payment loans forgivable after 5 years for borrowers who stay in farming.
• Improve the ability of USDA to identify and address the barriers to intergenerational land transition and new farmer entry by reauthorizing the USDA Commission on Farm Transitions.
• Authorize FSA to make grants or enter into cooperative agreements to assist with heirs property issues, including the creation of Heirs Property and Fractionated Land Legal Clinics.
• Strengthen the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program.

Comprehensive Federal Food Procurement Reform

USDA’s annual food expenditures represent an opportunity to address underlying causes of the farm crisis by creating markets that reduce production costs and support business growth and viability among groups underrepresented in the agricultural sector. Specifically, it means creating fair market opportunity for all producers, including beginning, young, veteran, and other historically underserved farmers and ranchers. USDA should:

• Open market access for more farmers and businesses to secure federal food contracts by developing criteria, and dedicating 20% of annual food spending, that consider metrics beyond least cost to reward producers who are using organic production methods and protecting our environment and businesses that purchase from underserved and socially disadvantaged producers.  
• Create a set aside within USDA food purchases to increase meat and poultry purchasing from small processors and small producers that increases over time to provide a stable market while providing recipients with healthy, nutritious protein products.

Strengthen Regional Food Supply Chains

A key element to promoting the integrity of local and regional supply chains – and thereby market opportunities for farmers – includes investing in the middle of the food supply chain, including critically underfunded infrastructure. Congress and USDA should:

• Establish state block grants to build states’ capacity to manage grant and loan programs for food supply chain infrastructure, including for aggregation and distribution, processing, and storage for specialty crops, meat and poultry, and dairy. 
• Continue investment in processing capacity. Together with changes to meat procurement policy at the federal level, this could provide stability to the domestic livestock and poultry sectors, especially independent producers who feel squeezed by a lack of competition in purchasers and processors. Providing a series of small grants, up to $500,000 per grant, to continue to fill gaps in processing capacity across the country would  support the expansion of domestic markets. 
• Promote a variety of technical assistance opportunities for producers that addresses barriers to farmers’ market access.  This includes technical assistance targeted toward food safety planning and certification, business development, and supply chain coordination.
• Build upon the success of the Dairy Business Innovation Centers by establishing regional technical assistance centers that provide business development and other forms of training and resources that fill existing regional gaps and promote growth in emerging sectors, with at least one center specifically around meat and poultry issues

Build a Stronger Farm Safety Net for All

All farmers and ranchers deserve a strong safety net that protects them in times of crisis. The design of farm safety net programs, including crop insurance and commodity support programs, promote a focus on yields and efficiency rather than resiliency. This system currently leaves out many producers altogether, particularly smaller, beginning, and diversified farmers. USDA should: 

• Improve risk management tools including Whole Farm Revenue Protection and the Non-Insured Disaster Assistance Program by streamlining applications, expanding coverage limits and options, and increasing access for small and beginning producers.
• Reform disincentives against the adoption of conservation practices that are perpetuated by federal crop insurance rules, and restructure safety net programs to support on-farm resiliency and reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster relief.
• Structure any supplemental disaster relief programs to maximize eligibility for all impacted producers, and ensure that payments reflect the true value of their losses through revenue-based assistance programs.

The post Keeping Farmers on the Land appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

On July 24, 2025, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins released memorandum SM-1078-015 announcing a proposed reorganization of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The proposal was drafted without consultation with farmers or other key stakeholders. Since the beginning of 2025, the agency has already lost more than 20,000 employees, and if implemented, the restructuring could trigger thousands more departures.

In response to a public outcry, USDA opened an ad hoc opportunity for feedback on the proposal. NSAC is encouraging farmers, advocates, and organizations to submit their perspectives on the proposed reorganization to reorganization@usda.gov by September 30, 2025. Still, NSAC remains seriously concerned that USDA has bypassed the standard practice of issuing a Federal Register notice to formally solicit public input on a change of this scale.

This post is the fourth installment in our series examining USDA’s staffing crisis and the ripple effects of the proposed reorganization. Here, we highlight staffing declines within the Farm Service Agency (FSA), where staff reductions threaten to undermine the agency’s ability to administer farm safety net programs, deliver disaster assistance, and provide critical support to farmers across the country. Our earlier posts looked first at overall USDA and state-level staff losses, the implications for the Department’s research agencies, and the loss of staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

FSA Staff Numbers Have Fallen for Two Decades

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) administers loans and payments to farmers and landowners, operating through a network of more than 2,000 state and county offices. FSA staff help farmers apply for loans, price support programs, income support, disaster recovery, and a variety of other financial support programs. FSA, quite literally, keeps the money flowing for millions of American farms and ranches. 

FSA employees include national, state, and county office staff. About ⅔ of FSA employees are county staff, working directly with farmers and landowners in local offices spread across the country. In 2024, for instance, approximately 7,168 employees were FSA county staff and approximately 3,402 were FSA state or national employees. 

Figure 1: FSA Staff in FY2024

FSA staffing levels have steadily eroded over recent decades. Even before the staff losses sustained during the current administration, the number of federal and state FSA staff declined by 43% between fiscal year 2005 and the beginning of fiscal year 2025. The number of county FSA staff declined by 22% during the same twenty year period. The National Association of Farmer Elected Committees recently sounded the alarm that there are now fewer than 6,000 FSA county office employees nationally, a 34% reduction from 2005 staffing levels. 

Figure 2: FSA Staff by Fiscal Year

Accelerated FSA Staffing Losses

The FSA has lost at least 1,200 additional employees just since January 2025. Approximately 499 FSA national and state employees and 674 FSA county employees opted to accept the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). The DRP encouraged federal employees to resign from their positions in exchange for receiving full pay and benefits through September 2025. Approximately 88 additional FSA state and national employees separated from the agency between January and March 2025, according to OPM. Unfortunately, since FSA county employees are not tracked by OPM, it is unknown how many FSA county employees also separated from the agency during this new administration. 

Table 1: Recent FSA Staffing Losses

Altogether, the FSA is entering the 2025 harvest season with at least 12% fewer staff members than in January 2025 and at least 1,100 employees fewer than at the end of the first Trump Administration. Just as farmers and landowners enter a period projected to be extremely economically challenging, the agency that provides their federal financial support has been gutted. The FSA has struggled to administer payments to farmers under the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program of 2025 and the 2023/2025 disaster relief programs, and is navigating the extensive changes to the federal commodity payment programs that were part of the recently passed budget reconciliation process. In addition, there is a growing recognition that supplemental relief will be needed for producers impacted by tariffs, high input costs, and program cuts. The scale of such assistance, likely to be around $20-30 billion, will require significant FSA support to ensure any program is run effectively and payments reach all producers in need. At a time of extremely high demand, these staffing levels will cause distress for the agency and stakeholders.

Every State Hit With FSA Staff Losses

Since two-thirds of FSA employees are county staff, the impact of the DRP and staff separations has been felt in every state across the country. Amongst the FSA federal employees, states lost an average of 17% of their FSA staff to the DRP. Two states, Alaska and Delaware, lost 100% of federal FSA employees in their state to the DRP. The 674 county FSA employees who left their positions to the DRP were spread across 46 states, with Texas (59 employees), Iowa (37 employees), Georgia (36 employees), and Kansas (33 employees) losing the large number of FSA county staff. The map below shows the number of FSA staff lost in each state since January 2025, including both the staff who accepted the DRP and those who otherwise separated from the agency.

Figure 3: FSA Staff Lost to DRP and Separations

No state has been spared in the gutting of the FSA staff. States with small staffing numbers have been hit particularly hard, such as Alaska and Delaware which have lost 100% of their FSA federal employees.

Farming Stakeholders Express Their Distress With Staff Cuts

Recently, The National Association of Farmer Elected Committees (NAFEC) issued a statement expressing their distress and frustration with existing low FSA staffing levels. NAFEC President Jim Zumbrink said: “NAFEC has County Committee members in every county in the nation and the word we are consistently hearing is our county office staffs are critically understaffed…As such, our staff will find it very difficult to perform the complex work of the new Farm Bill, combined with Disaster programs and ongoing programs, with the speed agriculture producers in America, both expect and desperately need.”

Leaders at NAFEC shared that their local offices will be unable to administer existing safety net programs and the forthcoming changes from budget reconciliation and a potential new farm bill. “The new farm bill is going to require millions of new base acres to be established which is going to take a lot of work. We also know that ongoing programs like the Livestock Forage Program (LFP), critical to our nation’s livestock producers, is a program that takes a lot of staff time to administer,” said Kevin Dale, a retired county executive director from a large beef-producing county in Oklahoma. His Oklahoma county office staff has recently been cut from a staff of four full time employees (including one full-time temporary employee) to just two staff members. With those numbers, he says, “Issuing payments quickly under this program will be impossible, without additional staffing.” 

FSA staff are highly skilled with extensive institutional knowledge that is lost with these separations. For instance, staff who separated from the agency between January and March 2025 had an average of 18.6 years of service, according to OPM. The decades worth of  invaluable experience and institutional knowledge FSA staff carry is essential to serving stakeholders effectively and efficiently. Bob Braden, a NAFEC officer and corn and soybean grower from Iowa says: “With the recent buyouts, not only are FSA offices depleted of warm bodies, but a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience also walked out the door of our offices. Replacing this experience will take a good amount of time.”

NAFEC’s recent public outcry concerning FSA staffing levels follows a July 2025 letter to farm groups highlighting that FSA staffing levels were “already at a breaking point:” “With recent buyouts and early retirements, the staffing levels in our counties has never been lower. Already at a breaking point, we are now faced with having to develop base acres on over 36 million new acres, as well as maintain all of the Title 1 programs that ensure a strong farm safety net. Frankly, we need your help if we are to be able to deliver the farm programs in the fast and efficient manner our producers have come to expect and deserve.” 

FSA Staff at a Breaking Point

The steady erosion of FSA staff, combined with the recent surge in losses, has left farmers and landowners with fewer resources and slower access to critical support just at the moment they most desperately need it. Rather than addressing this crisis, the Presidential budget includes massive cuts of more than $372 million to the FSA budget for the next fiscal year and plans to close many local offices. Deputy Secretary Vaden has said there are no plans to ask for either temporary or permanent increases in FSA staff levels, despite widespread stakeholder concerns. 

The proposed USDA reorganization will only further exacerbate this staffing crisis by driving even more staff out of the agency. Without a clear plan to rebuild FSA’s workforce, particularly at the county level where farmers most directly depend on assistance, USDA risks undermining the very programs that sustain farm communities in times of need.

The post USDA Staffing Crisis: Farm Service Agency Staff Losses Put Farm Safety Net at Risk appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

The Capital for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Act directs the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to develop a multi-year operating loan pilot for beginning farmers to finance initial assets and the development of production and management systems. These expenditures can include intangible business infrastructure for crop records, payroll, and regulatory compliance, investments to increase soil fertility, and more. 

“The Capital for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Act provides necessary support for the next generation of farmers and ranchers, who face high-start up costs and too often struggle to repay loans within their first year of operation. This practical and balanced pilot program would alleviate challenges with limited access to more flexible capital, and open opportunities to invest in key start-up capacities that will benefit their farm for years to come,” said Duncan Orlander, Policy Specialist at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. ”

Specifically, the terms of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Loan Pilot Program authorized in the Act would include:

• Direct and guaranteed FSA loans with a repayment term between 3 and 10 years;
• A loan limit of $100,000 for both direct and guaranteed development loans;
• Reduced collateral requirements of not greater than 100% loan-to-value;
• Reduced interest rate between zero and 3%, as determined by the Secretary; 
• Flexible principal repayment as determined by FSA, but not less than 1% of the remaining balance annually;
• Robust technical assistance for development loan borrowers; and
• Evaluation and reporting that measure pilot program success.

### 

About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

The post Release: NSAC Welcomes the Reintroduction of the Bicameral Capital for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Act appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Mike Lavender

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

mlavender@sustainableagriculture.net 

Tel. 734.417.8710

Comment: NSAC Urges Senate to Support Grassley “Actively Engaged” Amendment

Washington, DC, June 30, 2025 –– The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) issued the following comment, attributable to Mike Lavender, NSAC Policy Director, in support of Amendment #2527 filed by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to include a meaningful and effective “actively engaged in farming” test to commodity program payments in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) Act. 

“Bipartisan consensus has long maintained that farm payments should be targeted to working farmers who need them, not non-farm investors, absent landholders, or recipients who act as pass-throughs. Senator Grassley’s amendment closes loopholes that perpetuate waste, fraud, and abuse; under current law, limitless individuals on any farm can receive annual commodity program payments up to $125,000, or double that limit for recipients with a spouse, including absent investors and distant family members who never step foot on the farm. This amendment applies reasonable work requirements as a condition of eligibility for taxpayer-funded farm program payments and limits the number of payments to one payment per farm. This simple solution is projected to save $5 billion. The amendment does not impact in any way the Adjusted Gross Income threshold that affects eligibility for conservation and disaster programs. It does apply to commodity programs, such as the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage Program (PLC), into which the OBBB injects an additional $67 billion. This amendment is key to targeting farm support to hard-working family farmers – not absent investors and corporate board members – while stewarding responsible taxpayer spending.” 

Language virtually identical to the Grassley amendment was approved in June 2018 when the Senate advanced the bipartisan 2018 Farm Bill. A similar “actively engaged” provision also passed in the House of Representatives that year. Despite this overwhelming bipartisan, bicameral support, the provision was stripped in conference, contrary to the rules.

###

About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net

The post Comment: NSAC Urges Senate to Support Grassley “Actively Engaged” Amendment appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP), a novel insurance product that offers farmers nationwide the option to insure the revenue of their entire operation, including crop, livestock, and nursery production, under a single policy. WFRP also rewards adoption of business practices that reduce risk with its premium discount for crop and enterprise diversification.

These features make WFRP the ideal insurance product for a wide range of farms including small and mid-sized farms, which are more likely to be multi-crop, direct-market systems. Just nine percent of farms with less than 50 acres are insured at a time when financial volatility and unpredictability of weather events makes access to a safety net more important than ever. 

In this blog, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) analyzes the latest data in WFRP enrollment and coverage, revealing a heartening trend that recent improvements to WFRP are leading to steady gains. This is followed by several recommendations to propel this momentum, featuring needed improvements to both WFRP and the complementary Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP).

National Enrollment is Up 

The number of farmers enrolled in a WFRP plan rose to 2,256 in 2024 – the second highest participation in the program since 2018. Prior to 2024, WFRP enrollment had fallen from its peak by almost 35 percent in 2022, at 1,821 policies sold. Two years of increasing policy sales suggest that the bump in 2023 was not an anomaly, but the beginning of a new and favorable trend for the program. 

322 more farmers enrolled in WFRP in 2024 than in 2022, counting both normal WFRP policies and Micro Farm policies. If this pattern of growth continues, WFRP is on track to break the sales record set in 2017 (2,833 sales) within two years. 

Figure 1: WFRP and Micro Farm Policies Sold by Year

The uptick in enrollment is due to several improvements stewarded by USDA in recent years. First, USDA made programmatic improvements to remove some of the most common barriers to access. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) created the new Micro Farm option in 2022, which streamlines paperwork via the removal of burdensome expense report requirements and extends coverage to include post-production and value-added costs. The blog includes more information on the performance and changes to Micro Farm below. 

Among other changes RMA later removed the expense report requirement for all WFRP policyholders, not just those enrolling in Micro Farm. Expense reporting previously required farmers to produce receipts for all transactions within a year, among other records, a standard which does not align with the records that many small farmers keep – especially not those selling directly to consumers at farmers’ markets or farm stands. 

In addition, USDA began to invest in more active promotion of WFRP and Micro Farm in 2023. That year, the so-called “Roadshow” educated 17,500 farmers, crop insurance agents, and other attendees about the program with a series of virtual and in-person workshops. The latest move was to create a registry of crop insurance agents open to sell WFRP policies, organized by state. Finding an agent willing to sell WFRP policies is one of the most persistent challenges that prevent farmers from enrolling in federal crop insurance. 

Liabilities and Losses

In 2024, WFRP covered more insurable revenue than in any previous year at $2.96 billion. A significant portion of that accelerated growth is most likely attributed to the enrollment of more farms with higher value, including larger farms. The growth correlates with RMA’s decision to increase the maximum insurable revenue for WFRP from $8.5 million to $17 million. That change went into effect in 2023, allowing more farms to participate in the program.

Figure 2: WFRP Policies Sold and Liabilities by Year 

In 2023, the program issued more indemnity payments to farmers that made claims than any year prior: $21.1 billion. Because farmers collectively paid $13.6 billion in premiums to enroll in WFRP, the program operated at a “loss ratio” of 1.55. This metric is used to determine whether the Federal Crop Insurance Program, and individual policies therein, are “actuarially sound”; a loss ratio of 1.0 reflects a breakeven point, where indemnities equal the amount of money farmers pay in premiums to enroll. 

Loss Ratio = (Losses Due to Claims / Total Premium Earned) x 100 

RMA is statutorily required to maintain the actuarial soundness of the Federal Crop Insurance Program. That means that the average loss ratio must be at or below 1.0 on a 10-year average. This balance guarantees that enough funds will be available to issue payments in years of extreme loss. 

Figure 3: WFRP Loss Ratio by Year

At 1.55, WFRP’s high loss ratio in 2023 is most comparable to 2019. That year, NSAC determined the loss ratio was due in large part to heightened losses in Washington state. That’s because 34 percent of all WFRP policies that year were sold and serviced in Washington, and its individual loss ratio at 2.13 was a heavily weighted outlier. 

It appears that the loss ratio may again be attributed to the weight of individual states. With 705 policies sold (33 percent of the national total), Washington’s apple growers continue to lead in WFRP enrollment. Its loss ratio of 2.75 was once again a weighted outlier influencing the national average. For its part, California – the state with the second-highest enrollment in 2023 – exhibited a loss ratio just above the breakeven point, at 1.23, which coincides with the floods which inundated the Central Valley that year. 

Figure 4: Average Loss Ratio 2015-2025 by Policy Type

 Ultimately, the average loss ratio of WFRP is in relative alignment with multi-peril crop insurance programs. Its comparatively small size makes it more susceptible to wide swings than other insurance programs. To illustrate, 1,850 WFRP policies were sold in 2023, compared to 271,244 Yield Protection policies, 155,538 Actual Production History policies, and 1.56 million Revenue Protection policies. The Law of Large Numbers suggests that greater participation in WFRP beyond Washington would neutralize the impact of sudden regional spikes on the program’s overall loss ratio.

Closer Look at Micro Farm 

The Micro Farm option has emerged as a key to expanding WFRP enrollment in recent years. First created by RMA in 2022, Micro Farm was initially only available to farms with less than $100,000. The option streamlines paperwork via the removal of burdensome expense report requirements and offers additional coverage for value-added production and transportation. 

Targeting only true “micro” farms, just 26 policies were sold in its inaugural year. The eligibility ceiling was too low for a majority of small and mid-sized producers, even though such barriers were just as, if not more, salient for these farmers. Responding to producer needs, RMA expanded the eligibility ceiling in 2023 to include farmers with a gross revenue up to $350,000, which incorporates all “small” farms as defined by USDA. 

Figure 4: Micro Farm Policies Sold by Year

Micro Farm enrollment leapt from 26 to 136 within just two years. Presently, that participation is most concentrated in Michigan, with 69 policies sold in 2024. The Micro Farm option requires less paperwork from both farmers and crop insurance agents, while adding coverage for post-production expenses that are especially pivotal for direct-marketing farm businesses. 

Notably, RMA’s decision to eliminate the requirement for expense reports within Micro Farm became a proof-of-concept that enabled the agency to extend that to the rest of WFRP in 2024.

State Breakdown

First glance at the map below reveals that Washington state is the point of origin for most WFRP policies sold since 2015. Zooming out, WFRP is most popular in the Pacific Northwest and surrounding region generally, with 13,639 sold collectively between Washington (7,211), Idaho (1,971), California (1,746), Oregon (1,046), Montana (618), and Colorado (1,047). Many of these states have a high degree of specialty crop production and niche markets. For this reason, it follows that Florida (968), North Carolina (881), and Michigan (850) are also among the states with higher-than-average WFRP enrollment.

Figure 5: WFRP Policies Sold 2015-2024

The relative lack of WFRP enrollment nationwide visually conveyed in this map does not reflect ineligibility or even disinterest; just about any farm with at least three years of revenue history and less than $17 million in liabilities may be technically eligible for WFRP. Instead, it reflects that some barriers continue to keep WFRP from becoming an accessible and worthwhile program for the small, multi-crop, and direct-marketing farmers whose unique business structures are best suited for WFRP. 

What’s Next for WFRP?

The improvements to WFRP stewarded by RMA in recent years have reversed the trend of declining enrollment. They are a roadmap to what should be done to continue streamlining access, which is necessary to protect more American farmers from increasingly unpredictable weather and markets. 

Recommendations to continue building upon the success of WFRP include:

• Expand Micro Farm eligibility to include all mid-sized farms with a gross revenue up to $1 million, as recommended in a contracted RMA report as well as the 2018 Farm Bill. 
• Reform arbitrary limits to coverage, including the limit that only insures expansion of a farm up to 35 percent and leaves small, rapidly expanding farms underinsured. In addition, options are needed to calculate indemnities as historic revenue, lest bad years weigh historic averages. 
• New compensation bonuses and metrics for crop insurance agents to encourage selling WFRP to non-insured farmers, in addition to annual updates to the list of agents selling WFRP policies. 
• Improve NAP, as the only insurance-like product available to farmers with less than three years of history, to offer revenue-based coverage for participants and to offer an “on-ramp” for transition to WFRP enrollment once the necessary history is acquired. 

The Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Program Improvement Act, introduced in June 2023 by former Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), included many of these provisions. They were included in former Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)’s Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act in late 2024. Most recently, Rep. Johana Hayes (D-CT-5), joined by her colleagues representing the state of Connecticut, re-introduced the Save Our Small Farms Act, which includes all the above provisions to improve both WFRP and NAP.

In closing, NSAC maintains that WFRP and NAP are the programs best positioned to reach non-insured farmers, including small to mid-sized, specialty crop, and multi-crop farms that sell to local and regional markets. We will continue to advocate for the improvements outlined above with USDA and members of Congress who are committed to keep farmers on the land. 

The post Whole-Farm Revenue Protection Analysis: New Enrollments Reveal Path Forward appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Contact: Laura Zaks

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

press@sustainableagriculture.net

Tel. 347.563.6408

NSAC Applauds Bicameral Reintroduction of the Save Our Small Farms Act 

Washington, DC, March 28, 2025 – Today, the Connecticut congressional delegation, led by Representative Johana Hayes (D-CT-5), reintroduced the Save Our Small (SOS) Farms Act. Rep. Hayes was joined by Representatives Larson (D-CT-1), Courtney (D-CT-2), DeLauro (D-CT-3), and Himes (D-CT-4), as well as Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Murphy (D-CT). 

“The SOS Farms Act includes common-sense reforms to remove burdensome red tape that prevents small, specialty crop, and direct-marketing farmers from accessing permanent farm safety net programs, namely the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) and the Federal Crop Insurance Program,” said Billy Hackett, NSAC Policy Specialist. 

Among other provisions, the SOS Farms Act:

• Establishes a simplified, revenue-based option within NAP to streamline access for farmers who are unable to enroll due to excessive acreage reporting and paperwork requirements; 
• Creates an “on-ramp” for farmers without production history, including beginning farmers, to transition from enrollment in NAP to a Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) crop insurance plan;
• Authorizes the Farm Service Agency to pilot projects within NAP, data from which may be used to create new crop insurance options in coordination with the Risk Management Agency;
• Includes a suite of improvements to WFRP, the first crop insurance policy available nationwide and that insures revenue loss for an entire farm under a single plan, as first introduced in the WFRP Improvement Act; and
• Directs USDA to research and develop a weather index-based crop insurance pilot that would issue payment to participating farmers impacted by a qualifying natural disaster within 30 days, as first introduced in the WEATHER Act. 

The bill introduced in the House of Representatives includes all of the aforementioned reforms, while the Senate bill includes only the sections relevant to NAP. 

“The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) believes the SOS Farms Act is the most comprehensive proposal to keep farmers farming in the face of uncertain economic and weather conditions, modernizing pivotal USDA programs to reach farmers before disaster strikes,” continued Hackett. “We invite collaboration with any and all policymakers who want to keep family farmers on the land.”

### 

About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Learn more: https://sustainableagriculture.net/

The post NSAC Applauds Bicameral Reintroduction of the Save Our Small Farms Act appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Crop insurance is the cornerstone of the farm safety net, insuring farms for losses from unpredictable weather, market fluctuations, and other risks. Consequently, the federal crop insurance program (FCIP) is the costliest part of agriculture production spending, as taxpayers subsidize the program to the tune of billions of dollars each year. Despite being a cornerstone program, crop insurance caters primarily to the largest farms while stifling the participation of those with specialty crop production, diverse production systems, and direct marketing models. 

This post offers a deep dive into federal crop insurance coverage, looking at which farms are being left out of current coverage, why, and how the program can be strengthened to serve all American farmers.

How Does Federal Crop Insurance Work?

In the FCIP, agents working for private companies sell and service a wide range of insurance policies to farms. Federal tax dollars subsidize up to 60% of a farmer’s premium as well as insurance companies’ administrative and operating (A&O) expenses and costs to reinsure losses when policies actually pay out. The FCIP is extremely expensive to run, with federal costs up to $17.3 billion in 2022 – $12 billion in premium discounts and almost $4 billion to subsidize insurance companies. 

The 2022 Census of Agriculture revealed that 369,393 farm operations had crop insurance, covering a total of 298 million acres. While fewer farms were enrolled compared to the 2017 Census (which reported 380,236 farms with insurance), the total acres covered actually increased by more than 10 million. This means a slightly higher percentage of cropland is now insured—26.5% of all farms with cropland, up from 25.8% in 2017, and 78% of all cropland acres, up from 72%.

Figure 1: Crop Insurance Coverage in the Census of Agriculture

At first glance, these numbers suggest that farmers are seeing the value of crop insurance. But a deeper look reveals a troubling trend: coverage is increasingly concentrated among the largest farms, leaving small and mid-sized operations without the same financial protection.

Smaller Farms Are Less Likely to Have Insurance

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has reported that the average insured farm with cropland is larger and has higher annual sales than their uninsured counterparts, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture. The 2022 Census confirmed that small farms continue to be less protected by crop insurance.

Figure 2: Small Farms are Less Likely to be Insured

While 74% of farms that are 500 or more acres are insured, only 32% of farms 180 to 499 acres and only 23% of farms between 50 and 179 acres are insured. Just 9% of farms with less than 50 acres are insured. Previous reports have shown that among farms with crop insurance, the largest operations receive the bulk of premium subsidies, with the smallest 80% of farms receiving only 23% of crop insurance subsidies. 

But there is an even more fundamental issue: smaller farms are far less likely to have crop insurance in the first place. Before we even consider how subsidies are distributed, we need to recognize that many small and mid-sized farms are not part of the system at all. Likewise, farms with lower farm sales are much less likely to be insured than their larger peers. While 78% of farms with sales of more than $500,000 are insured, only 12% of farms with sales of less than $50,000 and 40% of farms with sales between $50,000 and $99,999 have insurance. 

Figure 3: Higher-Income Farms Are More Likely to be Insured

Small and mid-sized farms, which often grow multiple crops and sell into local markets, are left more vulnerable to financial losses. The Economic Research Service classifies only 27% of large farms as “high risk,” while between 52% and 79% of small farms, depending on farm type, are classified as high risk. The “risk” measured here is non-comprehensive, taking into account only profit margins without considering risk associated with weather events, loss of biodiversity, or soil erosion. 

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has long advocated for crop insurance reforms to address this disparity, arguing that the system works exceedingly well for large commodity farms while leaving smaller, diversified, and beginning farmers behind.

Specialty Crop Farms Are Less Likely to Be Covered

Farms that grow specialty crops – fruits, vegetables, and horticulture products – are much less likely to have crop insurance than farms that produce oilseeds and grains – corn, soy, wheat, sorghum, barley, rice, canola, sunflowers, dry edible beans, and dry edible peas. Only 15% of specialty crop farms were insured in 2022 compared to 71% of oilseed and grain farms. 

Figure 4: Specialty Crops Are Left Uncovered

*Note: Specialty crop operations include those classified by their North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) number as: vegetable and melon farms (NAICS 1112); fruit and tree nut farms (1113); or greenhouse, nursery, and floriculture production (NAICS 1114). 

*Note: Oilseed and grain farming operations include those classified by the NAICS number 1111. This “comprises establishments primarily engaged in (1) growing oilseed and/or grain crops and/or (2) producing oilseed and grain seeds. These crops have an annual life cycle and are typically grown in open fields. This category includes corn silage and grain silage.”

While the Risk Management Agency (RMA) has prioritized improving crop insurance coverage for specialty crop producers in the 2018 Farm Bill, coverage still lags substantially compared to their peers in row crop production, suggesting that existing crop insurance programs are not meeting the needs of specialty crop producers. Specialty crops are a vital component of nutritious food production and are also a significant economic driver for the local and national economy. 

Where Is Crop Insurance Most Common?

Not all states participate in crop insurance at the same rate. Nebraska leads the nation, with 62% of its operations with cropland insured. Just four other states have high participation rates with more than 50% of cropland insured, including Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Illinois – regions where large-scale commodity production dominates.

In contrast, crop insurance coverage is significantly lower in many states with smaller farms and more diversified agriculture: a shocking 23 states have less than 15% of their operations insured. Regionally, states in the Northeast have the lowest proportion of farms insured, with low rates also in parts of the South and Southwest. Without targeted reforms, these farmers remain exposed to financial risks that threaten their livelihoods and local food systems.

The interactive map below shows the coverage rates in each state.

Why Don’t Small Farms Use Crop Insurance?

There are several barriers preventing smaller farms from accessing crop insurance:

1. Single-Crop Insurance Policies – Most crop insurance policies are designed for large single-crop farms, and availability of individual coverage for crops changes by county. Multi-crop farms usually cannot find or use traditional crop insurance policies to cover the crops they grow.
2. Agents Do Not Sell to Small Farms – Compensation for crop insurance agents is tied to the value of the premium. It takes more time to tailor insurance coverage to small and multi-crop farms, which are invariably quoted for smaller premiums. With the exception of a few crop insurance agents who make it a niche specialty, this effectively dis-incentivizes agents from selling to small, diversified, and direct-to-consumer farms. 
3. Underinsured Value – Fruits and vegetables, especially in organic production systems, can often fetch a premium price on the market. But arbitrary ceilings on insurable value often prevent these farmers from insuring the full value of their crop, even if they are able to overcome initial hurdles to enroll.
4. Lack of Production History – Beginning farmers and those newly transitioning to organic production often run afoul of production history requirements; depending on the product, all producers need three to five years of yield or revenue history to be eligible for crop insurance coverage.
5. Limited Outreach and Support – Federal programs have historically prioritized large-scale operations, leaving many small farms unaware of their options or without sufficient guidance on how to enroll.

The Path To Expand Access

Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) are the existing programs best-positioned to reach small and uninsured farmers. 

NAP is an insurance-like program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to provide a basic level of coverage for new farmers without production history and to insure crops in counties where coverage is not available. WFRP was subsequently authorized in the 2014 Farm Bill as the first insurance policy designed for diversified farms, allowing a farmer to insure the revenue of their entire operation under one plan. It is the only crop insurance policy available nationwide and, in FY2024, WFRP policies covered nearly $3 billion in liabilities, showing growing demand for a more flexible insurance model. 

Despite this promise, uptake remains limited. Both NAP and WFRP are hindered by some of the same barriers outlined above. NAP, for instance, does offer coverage for new farmers, but exhaustive paperwork requirements do not reflect the records farmers keep when growing multiple crops or selling directly to consumers. Further, enhanced coverage options are cost-prohibitive and leave farmers using the program’s basic catastrophic coverage woefully underinsured. WFRP, meanwhile, is designed for diversified and local farmers with its revenue-based model – especially with recent changes from USDA to streamline paperwork requirements – but finding a crop insurance agent willing to sell WFRP remains a prohibitive barrier. Likewise, arbitrary coverage limits give the program a sour reputation among farmers who do manage to enroll but find themselves underinsured. 

NSAC supports a number of recommendations to improve both WFRP and NAP, to ensure they can reach and meaningfully insure farmers of all sizes. These include:

• Expanding Micro Farm eligibility (an option within WFRP that features streamlined paperwork) to include all farms with up to $1 million in revenue. 
• New compensation bonuses and performance metrics for crop insurance agents to incentivize sales of WFRP and other insurance products to small, specialty crop, and uninsured farms.
• Creating a revenue-based option within NAP to both streamline paperwork burdens for new farmers to access coverage and to serve as an on-ramp to enroll in WFRP once the necessary production history is established. 

To read more about the barriers that prevent most farmers from accessing crop insurance and policy recommendations to strengthen the program, see NSAC’s publication: Unsustainable: State of the Farm Safety Net. 

The post Uninsured: Federal Crop Insurance Program Leaves Most Farms Unprotected appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

As the 119th Congress begins, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) reauthorization is again on the agenda after numerous extensions. The farm safety net, which includes commodity support programs and federal crop insurance, is a fundamental component of any farm bill. 

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has long supported a federal safety net to help farmers manage risk and withstand financial volatility. Still, current US Department of Agriculture (USDA) commodity programs – some of the most expensive parts of the farm bill – are simply inaccessible for the vast majority of American farms. These programs primarily benefit a limited number of commodity producers, leaving behind many farmers, including small, beginning, and specialty crop farmers. Consequently, simply increasing investments in these programs is not a panacea.  

Improving the farm safety net to promote both long-term resilience against worsening risks and basic fairness, through a more equitable allocation of resources, is critical for the country’s agricultural future. This post explores the scope and limitations of two farm safety net programs – the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs – to inform how Congress can build a fair and accessible safety net in the next farm bill.

What are ARC and PLC?

ARC and PLC are the largest commodity support programs for farmers, designed to help protect against unpredictable losses in income or drops in prices for covered crops. ARC provides payments when a farmer’s revenue for a specific crop falls below historical average revenue, either individual farm revenue (ARC-Individual) or county average revenue (ARC-County). PLC triggers payments if the market price for a crop drops below a reference price that is established in statute, per eligible crop. 

The stated intention of both programs is to stabilize farm income and support agricultural producers facing the financial risks of volatile markets. Eligible farmers can choose between the two programs annually, based on forecasts of commodity prices and the risks they expect to face. 

ARC and PLC are authorized in the federal farm bill and are together projected to cost at least $48 billion over 10 years. In agriculture production spending, the cost of these programs is surpassed only by federal crop insurance. 

ARC and PLC Exclude Most Farms

Unfortunately, despite the costly price tag, ARC and PLC leave behind most American farmers and ranchers due to their narrow focus on a handful of commodities.

In 2023, there were 239.7 million acres enrolled in ARC and PLC, representing only 27 percent of all US farmland. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, 752,072 farms grow commodities that are covered by ARC and PLC, meaning that only 40 percent of all US farms grow commodities that are eligible for ARC and PLC. 

These large subsidy programs are only available to farms that produce a limited number of commodity crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, barley, canola, chickpeas (large and small), dry peas, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, rapeseed, rice (both long-grain and medium/short-grain), safflower, sesame seed, and sunflower seed. 

Furthermore, to enroll in ARC or PLC, a farm must have “base acres” enrolled with USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers the programs, as one of these covered commodities. Having base acres in a commodity does not mean that those acres are planted to that commodity. Instead, the number of base acres that a farm has of any commodity is tied to what was grown on that land in 1996, with only a handful of opportunities to make voluntary updates since then.

This model was partially designed to prevent farmers from “planting the program,” or making annual planting decisions based solely on projected commodity prices; through much of the twentieth century, excess supply driven by such market dynamics often contributed to overproduction that depressed commodity prices. However, the reliance on base acres means that many young farmers, beginning farmers, and other underserved producers without historical crop production are excluded from ARC and PLC even if they grow eligible commodities. 

Figure 1: ARC and PLC Leave Out 69 Percent of US Farm Acres (2023 Enrollment)

Just eight states have a majority of farmland acres eligible to enroll in ARC and PLC. The bottom 30 states have less than 30 percent of their farmland acreage eligible as base acres to enroll in ARC and PLC. The map below shows the percentage of farmland acres in each state that are eligible ARC and PLC base acres.

ARC and PLC Favor Corn, Soy, and Wheat

Of the 239.7 million acres enrolled in ARC and PLC in 2023, 85.5 percent were from just three commodities: corn (91 million acres), wheat (61 million acres), and soybeans (52 million acres). Of the $469 million spent on ARC in 2023, 75% percent went to those same three commodities: corn ($99.3 million), wheat ($190.3 million), and soybeans ($60 million). This includes both ARC-county and ARC-individual payments. Virtually no PLC payments were made in 2023 because market year average prices were higher than their reference prices. 

Figure 2: ARC and PLC Favor the Big Three Commodities

ARC Payments Flow Despite High Profits

To understand the full impact of ARC and PLC it is important to evaluate them concurrently, as farmers can and do shift from one program to another each season based on projected prices and market conditions. While PLC payments have been near zero for the most recent years due to high commodity prices, even in years of record-high farm profits and high commodity prices, ARC has continued to distribute substantial payments.

In 2022, American farms had record high profits of $187.9 billion and market year average prices for the largest covered commodities were high, yet ARC still made $274 million in direct payments and 64% went to the same three commodities: corn ($65 million), soy ($37 million), and wheat ($72 million) despite high commodity prices for those crops. 

Figure 3: Payments to Three Large Commodities Remain Despite High Prices

Table 1: Total ARC and PLC National Payments by Year 

Despite strong commodity prices and record profits, ARC paid $274 million in 2022 and paid an additional 58% more ($469 million) in 2023 as farmers responded to strong commodity prices by transitioning from PLC to ARC enrollment. This highlights how ARC payments are tied to revenue benchmarks rather than overall farm profitability, raising questions about the program's alignment with actual financial needs.

Just Five States Receive 40% of ARC and PLC Payments

Nearly half of all ARC and PLC payments go to farmers in just five states. From 2019-2023, five states accounted for 40.35% of all ARC and PLC payments: Texas ($1,181 million), Kansas ($888 million), North Dakota ($710 million), Georgia ($561 million), and Arkansas ($559 million). 

The interactive map below shows the total ARC and PLC payments to farmers in each state from 2019 to 2023. Click on a state to see the total amount, the total PLC payments, the total ARC-Individual payments, and the total ARC-County payments.

This stark geographic concentration of payments reflects the commodity focus of those states, base acres in each state, and differences in yield and benchmark revenues. States that receive high payment totals generally have more farmers specializing in covered commodities, especially corn, soy, and wheat. Those states also have larger base acreage that is eligible to be enrolled in ARC and PLC and have higher average yield and revenue benchmarks that result in larger payments when prices or revenues dip below historical averages. 

Farmers in most states, even those with very large agricultural economies such as Iowa and California, receive only modest support. Instead, ARC and PLC payments are concentrated in just a few areas with the most acres planted to cover commodities.  

Conclusion

To accommodate for a permanent farm safety that does not meet the needs of most farmers and ranchers, Congress has been forced to routinely authorize ad-hoc disaster assistance to offset worsening losses since 2017. In that time, Congress has spent just under $100 billion – up from $67 billion per the latest disaster and economic relief assistance package recently authorized in the American Relief Act of 2025. This infusion of cash is contributing to the latest USDA projection showing that farm income is expected to rise in 2025. 

Since 2022, more than half of all government payments to American farms have come from non-pandemic disaster relief. This trend further highlights how much of the farm safety net relies on costly ad-hoc measures. 

Despite their large price tag, ARC and PLC leave the majority of American farms and farmland vulnerable. For the first time since before the Civil War, the number of farms in the United States fell below two million in the 2022 Census of Agriculture, a seven percent loss of all US farms in just five years. Clearly, the current approach of simply throwing money at the problem, or into ARC and PLC as outdated bandages, is not working. 

It is necessary to close loopholes to ensure that larger operations and absent landowners or investors do not disproportionately benefit from these disaster assistance and commodity programs to the exclusion of farmers actively involved in the labor and management of their farms, including the small farmers growing fruits and vegetables who are most likely to be left behind. A resilient farm safety net should support all farmers, not just those of a certain size or growing a narrow set of commodities. 

Ultimately, the proactive solution is to strengthen programs that can serve all farmers, like federal crop insurance, and to invest in wider adoption of on-farm risk management, including soil health practices and market diversification, to mitigate losses before they happen. 

The post The Farm Safety Net: A Closer Look at ARC and PLC appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.