WASHINGTON, D.C. (RFD-TV) – New details are emerging about the release of farm aid “bridge payments. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins discussed the forthcoming farm aid during this week’s cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump. These bridge payments are intended to help farmers and ranchers make up for lost trade revenue as new global trade agreements are finalized.
After ongoing delays due to the federal government shutdown earlier this year, Secretary Rollins is now saying to expect an official announcement sometime next week. While the agriculture industry hoped details would be released this week, she said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is still working with the White House on the finer details.
Deputy Ag Secretary Stephen Vaden has said the USDA needs to take recent trade deals into account before finalizing the amount of aid farmers and ranchers will receive.
Shaun Haney, host of RealAg Radio, joined us on Wednesday’s Market Day Report for a closer look at the proposed bridge payments on the way for farmers.
In his interview with RFD-TV News, Haney outlined the latest updates on when producers might receive details about the aide program from government officials, and shared his opinions and big questions about the bridge payments he hopes will be answered when more details are released. He also discussed whether a similar bridge aid program was in the works for farmers and ranchers in Canada.
“It’s not just about soybeans in terms of who’s being hurt,” Haney said. “If you look at crops like sorghum and cotton, they are much more in the worst-case scenario when it comes to profitability than even soybeans. And soybeans have really improved with the jump in the future [over] the past three weeks. So, I think how it’s dispersed is a big question. And the final piece is, when? Is this money going to be put out? We’ve seen delays in the rollout of the program. When it is finally announced, will the money come in January? Are we talking at the end of Q1? That’s another thing I’m watching very closely.”
Farm Groups Argue Urgent Need for Farm Aid
As those discussions continue to linger, U.S. producers are facing a perfect storm of high supply costs, falling commodity prices, and tight margins, which are putting U.S. agriculture under pressure.
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Zippy Duvall recently spoke with Sec. Rollins to emphasize the need for help in farm country.
“Farmers are facing negative margins for many of their crops as supply costs remain very high and commodity prices have come crashing down,” Duvall said. “Economic assistance isn’t intended to help farmers make a profit or even to make their balance sheet whole. It’s simply meant to help them weather the storm and make it to the next growing season.”
USDA Undersecretary Richard Fordyce said the USDA is making payments quickly to catch up on delayed Conservation Reserve Payments (CRP) from the government shutdown.
Analyst: Silver Lining Could Emerge as USDA Catches Up onKey Reports
Impacts of the government shutdown continue to trickle through the ag industry, including at the USDA. With operations back online, some key reports, like November’s Cattle on Feed report, were released before Thanksgiving. However, according to Lance Honig of the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, it will take time for everything to get back on track.
“Things like the total or the Census of Horticultural Specialties; things that are extremely large projects and very heavily impacted by a six-week gap,” Honig explained. “We still don’t know exactly when we’re going to be able to catch all of that work up. Not only do we need to capture everything that we missed during those six weeks, but we’ve also got everything happening right now that would have been happening right now, as well. And so, a lot of moving parts.”
In some cases, Honig said, reports that missed publication during the shutdown will not be released at all.
“Some examples that come to mind for me are some of the weekly progress information,” he said. “You really can’t go back in time and go back to folks and say, ‘Hey, as of second Sunday in October, what do you think the condition ratings were? What do you think harvest progress was?’ It’s just physically not possible to recapture that information.”
NASS recently released an updated report release schedule. One of the more notable reports on that calendar is the December Cattle on Feed report, scheduled for release on Dec. 19.
Despite those delayed and missed reports, analysts believe there is still time for more positive news to emerge as they do trickle out.
“We knew the sales were taking place here around the Halloween, early November time frame, but we knew it would be at least a month before we saw those shipments,” explained trader Sam Hudson with Cornbelt Marketing. “Now that we’re into December, if we don’t see anything over the next two weeks, I think that concern will continue to grow. I still think it’s a lot easier to argue hitting this projection they’ve put out there for next year than even this year’s number, just because of timing. And if we end up exceeding it, it’ll probably be due to weather.”
China is expected to buy 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans next year, but South America remains China’s top grain export supplier. Hudson warns the markets will be watching the weather in places like Brazil and Argentina, which could affect how many beans China ends up buying from the U.S. market.
As those backlogged reports come in, market analysts are paying close attention to any mentions of China. Darin Newsom at Barchart tells us the latest export sales data from October caught his eye for one key reason.
“China still had nothing on the books for 2025, 26, or next marketing year,” Newsom said. “So remember, there’s a caveat in this latest quote-unquote ‘deal’ that was so much was made about that allowed China to cover their commitments in futures, as long futures hedges to cover upcoming purchases from other countries, not necessarily physical U.S. supply. So, while we see these markets move overnight — and we would expect to see an export sales announcement, which we haven’t seen yet — a lot of this could just be a futures play, futures hedges being put on.”
