Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced today new information about the first round of direct payments for farmers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP).
Rollins says the program, administered by FSA, will help producers offset some of the impacts of increased input costs amid falling commodity prices. In an exclusive interview with Farm Journal in late February, she confirmed emergency relief payments would be released before the March 21 deadline established by Congress.
ECAP payments are based on planted and prevented plant crop acres for the 2024 crop year. Assistance will be calculated using a flat payment rate for the eligible commodity multiplied by the eligible reported acres. For acres reported as prevented plant, ECAP assistance will be calculated at 50%. These payments are separate from the $21 billion in proposed natural disaster aid payments, which will be rolled out later this year.
Here are the per-acre payment rates and eligible commodities:
Sign-up starts tomorrow, March 19, and runs through Aug. 15, 2025. Only one application is required for all ECAP eligible commodities. Applications can be submitted to FSA in-person, electronically using Box and One-Span, by fax or by applying online at fsa.usda.gov/ecap using a secure login.gov account.
Rollins has tasked FSA with ensuring a streamlined sign-up and approval process, and pre-filled applications will be sent to farmers who have already submitted 2024 acreage reports.
USDA also wants farmers to know they do not have to wait for the pre-filled ECAP application to arrive to apply for the funds. They can visit fsa.usda.gov/ecap and apply or contact their local FSA office to request an application starting March 19.
ECAP payments will be issued as applications are approved, though initial payments will be factored by 85% to ensure total program payments do not exceed available funding. If additional funds remain, FSA might issue a second payment.
Why Payments Now?
The payments will “definitely help” farmers and ranchers in the U.S., said Chad Hart, Iowa State University ag economist, on a March 18 AgriTalk segment.
“If you think about what the ag economy has been going through in the past couple of years, we have seen a drop in net farm income that has led to a softening of the overall ag economy, which has manifested itself in, for example, the layoffs we’ve seen with John Deere and things like that,” he says. “So this does help support that cash flow going into planting season.”
American Farm Bureau Federation vice president Scott VanderWal says he’s already hearing stories from farmers who are being turned down for operating loans to get a crop in the ground this spring, so the additional support from USDA will be well-received among farmers that need a quick influx of operating capital.
“Agriculture is really hurting after the last year or so, and we’re looking at negative margins on corn and soybeans, and probably wheat as well, so its not a good situation,” said VanderWal on AgriTalk. “We’re not seeing our markets come up at all with the rumors of retaliatory tariffs and all these things that are going on.”
