With USDA’s and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ Dec. 31 announcement detailing rates for Farmer Bridge Assistance Program payments, set to be distributed by Feb. 28, there’s the matter of how farmers will spend the funds.
“If we look at it as a share of revenue, it looks around 5% to 20% for different farms. So, it’s meaningful, it’s something, but it might not necessarily change the picture for all of the farmers,” says Wes Davis, chief ag economist at Meridian Agribusiness Advisors.
Davis estimates the payment rate per acre for corn is about $0.25 per bushel and $0.62 per bushel for soybeans.
Per the Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer earlier this fall, when asked how they’d spend potential government payments, 53% of farmers said they would use the money to pay down debt.
“Farmers are getting that debt off their books and concentrating on reducing their payment rates,” Davis says.
This, he adds, is supported by data from the Kansas City Federal Reserve indicating a growing segment of farmers selling mid-to-long-term assets to improve working capital or pay down debt.
One-quarter said the money would go toward improving working capital.
“So, farmers may have more funding available to spend on inputs as the spring buying season starts,” Davis says.
From Farm Journal research, 75% to 80% of farmers have input decisions made by the end of February, when farmers expect to receive bridge program payments. Davis says this means the program won’t have substantial changes in seed or fertilizer purchases but will most likely have an effect on crop protection purchases.
From the Purdue research 12% and 11% of farmers, respectively, said it could be used to invest in machinery and cover family expenses.
Respondents in the latest Farm Journal Ag Economist Monthly Monitor warn the payments may help with short-term cash flow, but could delay market adjustments.
“Payments will prolong high input costs and land values,” one respondent said.
When economists in the Farm Journal Monitor were asked if they expect the Farmer Bridge Payments to sufficiently cover financial losses experienced by farmers in 2025:
- 54% said the payments are “partially sufficient , the aid will cover some but not all losses.”
- 38% said, “The aid will be insufficient to cover losses.”
When followed-up with, “What impact, if any, do you expect the bridge payments to have,” economists said:
- May help pay down current operating loans for some and for others, help get a start on 2026 inputs
- All players in the farm supply chain know about the payments and will know the exact payment rates. The payments will prolong high input costs and land values/rental rates. Any adjustments that should occur from an economic perspective are delayed because of the cash influx.
- Support cash rent and land values
- The payments will help producers with short-run cash flow issues. They will not help encourage needed adjustments in rental rates and other production expenses.
- They will help pay down debt for most producers, providing a much needed boost the the agricultural lending sector.
- It will help the younger producers that don’t have the capacity to roll operating loans, but many of the dollars will flow-through to input suppliers. That delays what should be a downside correction in input prices.
“A lot of this money — half of it — is just going to be a simple pass-through,” Davis says. “So, farmers have already spent it on that debt; they’re going to use it to pay down those balances. It might actually reduce the amount of interest payments that farmers have over the next season, but for it to pass through and increase the spending on some of their inputs or equipment or potentially land, that’s not really showing up in the data that we’re seeing, and farmers are not telling us that’s what they’re going to go and use the funding for.”
The bridge program is an economic assistance program, not a tariff relief program.
Seth Meyer, the former USDA chief economist and now director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. explains the intent behind the $11 billion in farmer bridge payments that were announced late in 2025: they weren’t designed to offset trade losses, but to bridge producers to the point where long-standing safety nets take effect.
“These were calculated based on shortfalls in cost of production, not trade impacts,” he tells Farm Journal. “If this is going to be a bridge payment, it needs to be quick. That’s why an ECAP-style approach made sense, it could be administered fast.”
Davis says is an important distinction.
“If you look at the last trade war that we had, there were payments, and they were directly tied to the price impact and the actual damage that was done to farm prices,” he says. “Potentially, it leaves some options open for the administration to add funding that does supplement those prices. We’ve heard chatter over time that there may be another round of payments or funding available over the next year. I think that leaves the window open for trade relief if this is positioned as economic relief, with inputs staying well above the level that they were even five years ago.”
One big question remains.
It’s how the program will support specialty growers. USDA announced an additional $1 billion for specialty crop growers, but further details on timing and eligibility have not been released.
“Analysis from the American Farm Bureau showed almost every single major specialty crop is in the red by 1x to 2x what they have been historically,” Davis says. “Figuring out how that payment will be distributed to those growers will be really important.”
AFBF notes specialty crops account for more than one-third of U.S. crop sales: $75 billion.
Meyer also acknowledges a smaller $1 billion pool for specialty crops and sugar poses challenges: “With the diversity in specialty crop areas, it’s much more complicated to implement, how do you cover all of that efficiently?”