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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Sunday laid out some broad details of the $10 billion in market relief for row crop producers that’s due out by March 21, asserting that the U.S. farm economy is “perhaps the worst it's been in 100 years.”
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Friday she hopes to beat the March 21 deadline set by Congress for distributing $31 billion in economic relief and disaster aid payments. She also promised that farmers would be “made whole” for financial losses from new trade wars.
Congressional leaders could finalize a stopgap spending bill this week that will likely include another one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill, but may lack a package of disaster aid and market relief for farmers.
Leaders of the House and Senate Ag committees are in active discussions about putting elements of a farm bill in an end-of-the year aid package, including possible new funding for commodity programs as well as crop insurance reimbursements.
House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson is ready to move another extension of the 2018 farm bill, acknowledging to reporters Monday evening that lawmakers are unlikely to consider the measure in the lame duck session. “We’re prepared for an extension,” Thompson said.
The White House formally asked Congress on Monday for $21 billion in disaster aid for farmers who have lost crops and livestock due to hurricanes, drought and wildfires over the past two years.
Ongoing partisan battles over nutrition assistance and Inflation Reduction Act funding have received all the attention but there are plenty of other policy disagreements in the approaches that leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture committees are taking on a new farm bill.
