Farmers will see $12 billion available to aid them as they face trade market disruptions and increased production costs, but some Ohio advocates said the program is temporary relief for a long-term problem.
The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program will provide $11 billion to major row crop farmers and $1 billion to specialty crop farmers across the country.
"$11 billion is going to be your traditional crops, what you traditionally think of when you think of Ohio agriculture — corn, soybeans, wheat, those commodities," said Brad Bales, senior director of state and national policy for Ohio Farm Bureau.
Nicole Wolcott, federal policy coordinator for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, said she and some of the specialty crop farmers in their network are weary of these one-off bailouts that they said primarily benefit larger farms.
"I was on a call yesterday with a diversified vegetable specialty crop farmer and he was like, ‘Yeah, I'm just not paying attention to it. You know, I never qualify for these programs or I never get something that I deserve. So what's the point?" she said.
And when it comes to smaller, specialty crop farms, bridge funding hasn't always been as accessible.
According to Wolcott, they can also be referred to as "diversified farmers" and those producers are the type of farmer people might see at a local farmers market.
"The people who you're buying local food from to put on your table for dinner. So those folks are often regularly left out. And there's a lot of different reasons for that," she said. "One, when we look at our farm safety net programs in general, it's really hard to have accessible crop insurance programs."
Existing insurance programs can meet a portion of the diversified farmers' needs, she said, but if they have 30 different crops requiring insurance, their specific coverage could be widely varied.
And costs for farmers have been going up. Bales said going back to 2022 there have been "ever increasing" input costs, putting pressure on farmers of all backgrounds.
"That's the cost of doing business. So everything from fuel to fertilizer has increasingly cost more," he said.
Timelines
Money from the bridge program will start to roll out for row crop farmers starting Feb. 28, while the nation awaits an updated Farm Bill.
Specialty crop farmers are waiting to hear on a timeline for that funding.
Bales said eligible farmers must have submitted acreage reports last month to receive the assistance from their local Farm Service Agency.
"They want to focus on a lot of the input costs and things that go into what happened on the field," said Bales.
While they're grateful for assistance to farmers in the OEFFA network and beyond, Wolcott said without solid legislation to support them, these programs provide temporary relief to a long-term issue.
The economy and society as a whole has changed dramatically since the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, she said, only enforcing the need for updated legislation instead of extending the outdated bill.
"It has now been extended for the third time and each year that extension comes up — we're crossing our fingers to be like, 'OK, what is Congress going to get done?' And what are we going to need to push," she said.
The farm bureau hopes a Farm Bill will pass before the end of 2026 to stabilize the ag industry, Bales said. But he’s optimistic that provisions in the Big Beautiful Bill passed last year will put farmers in a better position for 2027.
“We would prefer to be profitable and make our own paychecks, but again, this gives some breathing room to an industry that for four, five, six years now has been under a lot of pressure, a lot economic pressures," he said.
