Other Ag News:
(Washington, D.C., October 16, 2026) – Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins visited Giesenschlag Farms in Caldwell, Texas, where she announced two new actions under the Great American Cotton Plan to strengthen support for American cotton producers.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
As the number of lawmakers with direct ties to production agriculture continues to shrink, who will step up to speak for rural America? Farm Journal is proud to present Ag Vote 2026: Who Speaks for America’s Farmers?, delivering in-depth reporting from now through Election Day. Tune in for LIVE election night coverage Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. Central on
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We are just three weeks away from the midterm elections and American agriculture has a lot at stake. From the cost of fuel and fertilizer to the future of the farm bill, tariffs and trade, how the vote goes will set the agenda for the next couple of years. But who represents those items in Washington is the biggest part of that future.
No doubt, farmers have been front and center with this administration. Back in March, President Trump hosted a gathering of farmers and ranchers on the White House lawn.
“You voted for me. I’ll never forget that,” said President Trump in his closing remarks. “I’ll never forget the great friendship that we’ve had.”
From aid packages and trade agreements to surprise beef import announcements, persistently high fertilizer prices and surging fuel costs, agriculture and farm policy have remained prominent issues during President Trump’s second term.
“We do not have a farm bill and there is a big question as to whether or not the farm bill will get done, or even can get done, in a lame duck after the midterm elections,” says Callie Eideberg with The Vogel Group .
Strong Ag Voices Leaving
As the midterms approach, Congress is set for a shuffle. Many long-tenured advocates of ag are leaving Washington. Names like Mitch McConnell, Amy Klobuchar, Joni Ernst, Angie Craig and Thomas Massie are on that list. Some are retiring, others are seeking higher office and some lost their primaries.
The midterm vote is poised to determine who will speak for America’s farmers and ranchers in the future. Many of those leaving have direct ties or personal ag backgrounds, even as rural voters express frustration about a lack of knowledge about their livelihoods in D.C.
“What we are seeing and what we’re hearing is that there is frustration across the countryside that elected officials just don’t understand what it’s like to live and work on a farm,” says Michael Amato of Amato Advisors.
Disconnected from Washington(Lori Hays) Earlier this year, Amato Advisors and Farm Journal surveyed rural voters about the midterm elections and found they feel disconnected from their D.C. representatives. Seventy-three percent said elected officials don’t understand them and roughly a quarter said the right candidate, with real farm ties, could sway their vote.
“Even in this era of deep partisan division, an increasing number of Americans, especially rural Americans, are just fed up with both parties and that’s an interesting combination,” says Nicholas Jacobs, a political science professor at Colby College and author of The Rural Voter . “We are becoming more divided, but then more and more people are just politically homeless.”
Fewer Farmers in Washington Created Using AI-assisted Research(Farm Journal) The number of members in Congress whose prior occupation was farming continues to dwindle, falling from more than 20% around 1950 to somewhere between 3% and 8% today.
“One of the surprising things is that farmers were so well represented even as the percent of the population that was directly engaged in agriculture, ranching or other forms of ag production declined,” Jacobs says. “Yet you saw representatives from those industries still elected.”
Ag Voices At Risk Ahead of November, according to Farm Journal calculations, there are 136 members of Congress who have a voice for agriculture in Washington, D.C. That includes those who serve on the House or Senate Ag Committees. Of those, 90 members have some sort of personal background or connection to agriculture. That is defined by growing up on or owning a farm or ranch, working in agriculture or an ag-related job, having a parent or grandparent who farmed, or owning farmland of their own.
Of the 136 members who have a voice in ag, nearly 40 are either leaving Congress, running for another chamber or facing a competitive race this cycle. History indicates that when the voting ends, there are likely to be fewer ag voices in Washington.
“When you lose that experience, when you lose that direct connection, what we know is that politicians become more dependent on their staffers,” Jacobs says. “I’m not super convinced that either party’s dependency on young staffers, who spend all their time in D.C., is necessarily a good thing for the country. Politicians [also] become more dependent on lobbyist groups.”
It likely will not be a sea change or total loss of strong ag voices. Current polling shows 77 of the 136 with an ag voice are in less competitive races and 23 aren’t even up for reelection.
Ag Voices Ahead of the 2026 Midterm Elections(Lori Hays) “This has certainly been a heavily Republican voting bloc, but we’ve seen signs that they’re looking around now and trying to look at candidates, specifically,” adds Amato. “I don’t think this is a political realignment, but I think there are opportunities for candidates on both sides of the party to step up and communicate that they understand what it’s like to live on a farm.”
And that open door has political pundits wondering just how much opportunity lies at the ballot box this November.
“Historically, I think once since Reconstruction has the president’s party in power in the second term of that presidency actually held or gained seats in that second midterm,” says Tyson Redpath with The Russell Group . “History is at odds with the GOP’s chances of adding seats in the House and Senate during this midterm.”
A Non-Ag Endorsement
“What’s happening in Washington now is just unbelievable,” laments Bob Stallman, a rice and cattle farmer from Texas and former president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
This year, he’s endorsing a non-ag candidate, James Talarico, over another non-ag candidate, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, for U.S. Senate.
“James Talarico, I mean, he’s willing to see where the problems are,” Stallman says. “He’s willing to work, he’s willing to learn and he understands the importance of agriculture to the state of Texas.”
When asked why Stallman, who spent years fighting for ag interests in Washington, is endorsing a non-ag candidate, he said it’s about a willingness to engage.
“You know, he didn’t sit next to me over the years as we debated the details, the onerous details, of farm bills and those kinds of things, but he’s willing to learn,” Stallman says.
His endorsement stands at odds with the Texas Farm Bureau , which is backing Paxton, citing his time as attorney general and work involving farmers and rural landowners.
Races Heat Up Farm Country
The race in Texas isn’t the only one with rural roots. There are tight races in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and beyond.
“In Kansas you’re talking about over a century or nearly a century of that Senate seat being in Republican hands,” Redpath says. “Does that flip?”
Amato is keeping his eyes on Iowa.
“I think it’s an ag-heavy state and there are open seats on the Senate side, there are open seats on the [House] side and there’s an interesting governor’s race happening there,” Amato says.
As Nov. 3 approaches, this election is likely to boil down to voter turnout.
“For 30 years, almost from the nineties until really Barack Obama’s presidency, the Republican Party always had turnout advantage just based on who comprised their coalition,” Jacobs explains. “Then it flipped and now Democrats have the turnout advantage because more of what we call high propensity voters are more likely to vote Democrat.”
It’s The Ag Economy Input Costs Remain a Hot Topic(Lori Hays) Beyond just turnout, today’s business headaches and tight economics are adding to the conversation. Will frustrations around the cost of fuel and fertilizer drive voters’ decisions?
We recently asked ag economists about what will matter most to rural voters this cycle and 84% agreed that inputs and energy costs are at the top of the list. Those concerns clocked in well ahead of trade or tariff policy and rural healthcare.
New Leadership, New Priorities
The fallout has the potential to significantly impact rural economic policy in 2027 and beyond. If leadership in the House changes, a new Democratic chair of the House Ag Committee is likely to take a different approach to the farm bill if it’s not passed during the lame duck session of Congress.
“Those members are very likely going to want to put their own stamp on a farm bill,” Eideberg says. “I think folks should expect to see a greater emphasis on the SNAP program and probably an emphasis on oversight of the decisions that USDA has been making over the last two years.”
In the Senate, Democratic Ag Committee leadership is going to change regardless.
“If Senator Michael Bennet becomes either the chairman or the ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, we’re going to see a big focus on Western producers,” explains Eideberg. “We’ll probably see much more [focus] on ranching than we have seen in the past, when we’ve seen Midwestern or Southern members control the committee.”
Speak Up, Educate More
However the next Congress shakes out, the question for rural agricultural voters remains: how does a country founded with such close ties to agriculture change if farmer voices continue to disappear?
“I think that it matters in a much more fundamental way whether people feel represented, whether they feel seen, and whether they trust the people that are going to office to represent them,” Jacobs says.
These experts say that whether the candidate is a farmer or not, the agriculture industry has a responsibility to educate.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a time where people are more interested in how their food is grown, where it’s grown, and why it’s grown in the manner that it is,” Redpath says. “The more people that are interested in our food and agriculture supply system, the better. But with that comes responsibility, right? With that comes the opportunity and the challenge to explain, to educate and that [is what] has changed.”
Even though Stallman has been out of the spotlight for the last decade, he agrees that in today’s political climate, continuous education is paramount.
“I think too many organizations look at their big fly-in as, you know, wow, we did our jobs,” Stallman says. “No, it’s an everyday job. It’s getting on the phone. It’s getting on the internet. It’s getting on social media and making the case for agriculture and developing those relationships; that’s the most important thing.”
We are just three weeks away from the midterm elections and American agriculture has a lot at stake. From the cost of fuel and fertilizer to the future of the farm bill, tariffs and trade, how the vote goes will set the agenda for the next couple of years. But who represents those items in Washington is the biggest part of that future.
No doubt, farmers have been front and center with this administration. Back in March, President Trump hosted a gathering of farmers and ranchers on the White House lawn.
“You voted for me. I’ll never forget that,” said President Trump in his closing remarks. “I’ll never forget the great friendship that we’ve had.”
From aid packages and trade agreements to surprise beef import announcements, persistently high fertilizer prices and surging fuel costs, agriculture and farm policy have remained prominent issues during President Trump’s second term.
“We do not have a farm bill and there is a big question as to whether or not the farm bill will get done, or even can get done, in a lame duck after the midterm elections,” says Callie Eideberg with The Vogel Group .
Strong Ag Voices Leaving
As the midterms approach, Congress is set for a shuffle. Many long-tenured advocates of ag are leaving Washington. Names like Mitch McConnell, Amy Klobuchar, Joni Ernst, Angie Craig and Thomas Massie are on that list. Some are retiring, others are seeking higher office and some lost their primaries.
The midterm vote is poised to determine who will speak for America’s farmers and ranchers in the future. Many of those leaving have direct ties or personal ag backgrounds, even as rural voters express frustration about a lack of knowledge about their livelihoods in D.C.
“What we are seeing and what we’re hearing is that there is frustration across the countryside that elected officials just don’t understand what it’s like to live and work on a farm,” says Michael Amato of Amato Advisors.
Disconnected from Washington(Lori Hays) Earlier this year, Amato Advisors and Farm Journal surveyed rural voters about the midterm elections and found they feel disconnected from their D.C. representatives. Seventy-three percent said elected officials don’t understand them and roughly a quarter said the right candidate, with real farm ties, could sway their vote.
“Even in this era of deep partisan division, an increasing number of Americans, especially rural Americans, are just fed up with both parties and that’s an interesting combination,” says Nicholas Jacobs, a political science professor at Colby College and author of The Rural Voter . “We are becoming more divided, but then more and more people are just politically homeless.”
Fewer Farmers in Washington Created Using AI-assisted Research(Farm Journal) The number of members in Congress whose prior occupation was farming continues to dwindle, falling from more than 20% around 1950 to somewhere between 3% and 8% today.
“One of the surprising things is that farmers were so well represented even as the percent of the population that was directly engaged in agriculture, ranching or other forms of ag production declined,” Jacobs says. “Yet you saw representatives from those industries still elected.”
Ag Voices At Risk Ahead of November, according to Farm Journal calculations, there are 136 members of Congress who have a voice for agriculture in Washington, D.C. That includes those who serve on the House or Senate Ag Committees. Of those, 90 members have some sort of personal background or connection to agriculture. That is defined by growing up on or owning a farm or ranch, working in agriculture or an ag-related job, having a parent or grandparent who farmed, or owning farmland of their own.
Of the 136 members who have a voice in ag, nearly 40 are either leaving Congress, running for another chamber or facing a competitive race this cycle. History indicates that when the voting ends, there are likely to be fewer ag voices in Washington.
“When you lose that experience, when you lose that direct connection, what we know is that politicians become more dependent on their staffers,” Jacobs says. “I’m not super convinced that either party’s dependency on young staffers, who spend all their time in D.C., is necessarily a good thing for the country. Politicians [also] become more dependent on lobbyist groups.”
It likely will not be a sea change or total loss of strong ag voices. Current polling shows 77 of the 136 with an ag voice are in less competitive races and 23 aren’t even up for reelection.
Ag Voices Ahead of the 2026 Midterm Elections(Lori Hays) “This has certainly been a heavily Republican voting bloc, but we’ve seen signs that they’re looking around now and trying to look at candidates, specifically,” adds Amato. “I don’t think this is a political realignment, but I think there are opportunities for candidates on both sides of the party to step up and communicate that they understand what it’s like to live on a farm.”
And that open door has political pundits wondering just how much opportunity lies at the ballot box this November.
“Historically, I think once since Reconstruction has the president’s party in power in the second term of that presidency actually held or gained seats in that second midterm,” says Tyson Redpath with The Russell Group . “History is at odds with the GOP’s chances of adding seats in the House and Senate during this midterm.”
A Non-Ag Endorsement
“What’s happening in Washington now is just unbelievable,” laments Bob Stallman, a rice and cattle farmer from Texas and former president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
This year, he’s endorsing a non-ag candidate, James Talarico, over another non-ag candidate, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, for U.S. Senate.
“James Talarico, I mean, he’s willing to see where the problems are,” Stallman says. “He’s willing to work, he’s willing to learn and he understands the importance of agriculture to the state of Texas.”
When asked why Stallman, who spent years fighting for ag interests in Washington, is endorsing a non-ag candidate, he said it’s about a willingness to engage.
“You know, he didn’t sit next to me over the years as we debated the details, the onerous details, of farm bills and those kinds of things, but he’s willing to learn,” Stallman says.
His endorsement stands at odds with the Texas Farm Bureau , which is backing Paxton, citing his time as attorney general and work involving farmers and rural landowners.
Races Heat Up Farm Country
The race in Texas isn’t the only one with rural roots. There are tight races in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and beyond.
“In Kansas you’re talking about over a century or nearly a century of that Senate seat being in Republican hands,” Redpath says. “Does that flip?”
Amato is keeping his eyes on Iowa.
“I think it’s an ag-heavy state and there are open seats on the Senate side, there are open seats on the [House] side and there’s an interesting governor’s race happening there,” Amato says.
As Nov. 3 approaches, this election is likely to boil down to voter turnout.
“For 30 years, almost from the nineties until really Barack Obama’s presidency, the Republican Party always had turnout advantage just based on who comprised their coalition,” Jacobs explains. “Then it flipped and now Democrats have the turnout advantage because more of what we call high propensity voters are more likely to vote Democrat.”
It’s The Ag Economy Input Costs Remain a Hot Topic(Lori Hays) Beyond just turnout, today’s business headaches and tight economics are adding to the conversation. Will frustrations around the cost of fuel and fertilizer drive voters’ decisions?
We recently asked ag economists about what will matter most to rural voters this cycle and 84% agreed that inputs and energy costs are at the top of the list. Those concerns clocked in well ahead of trade or tariff policy and rural healthcare.
New Leadership, New Priorities
The fallout has the potential to significantly impact rural economic policy in 2027 and beyond. If leadership in the House changes, a new Democratic chair of the House Ag Committee is likely to take a different approach to the farm bill if it’s not passed during the lame duck session of Congress.
“Those members are very likely going to want to put their own stamp on a farm bill,” Eideberg says. “I think folks should expect to see a greater emphasis on the SNAP program and probably an emphasis on oversight of the decisions that USDA has been making over the last two years.”
In the Senate, Democratic Ag Committee leadership is going to change regardless.
“If Senator Michael Bennet becomes either the chairman or the ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, we’re going to see a big focus on Western producers,” explains Eideberg. “We’ll probably see much more [focus] on ranching than we have seen in the past, when we’ve seen Midwestern or Southern members control the committee.”
Speak Up, Educate More
However the next Congress shakes out, the question for rural agricultural voters remains: how does a country founded with such close ties to agriculture change if farmer voices continue to disappear?
“I think that it matters in a much more fundamental way whether people feel represented, whether they feel seen, and whether they trust the people that are going to office to represent them,” Jacobs says.
These experts say that whether the candidate is a farmer or not, the agriculture industry has a responsibility to educate.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a time where people are more interested in how their food is grown, where it’s grown, and why it’s grown in the manner that it is,” Redpath says. “The more people that are interested in our food and agriculture supply system, the better. But with that comes responsibility, right? With that comes the opportunity and the challenge to explain, to educate and that [is what] has changed.”
Even though Stallman has been out of the spotlight for the last decade, he agrees that in today’s political climate, continuous education is paramount.
“I think too many organizations look at their big fly-in as, you know, wow, we did our jobs,” Stallman says. “No, it’s an everyday job. It’s getting on the phone. It’s getting on the internet. It’s getting on social media and making the case for agriculture and developing those relationships; that’s the most important thing.”
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
Farmers should see bigger Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments for the 2025 crop year by the end of October. The checks are likely to be record-setting,
but Farm CPA Paul Neiffer
points out those payments could be smaller than lawmakers and budget scorekeepers projected a year ago.
Last week, USDA announced that the Farm Service Agency’s Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) will generate approximately $13.8 billion in gross payments to eligible agricultural producers for the 2025 crop year. USDA says that’s the largest annual payout by far since these key safety net programs were established in the 2014 Farm Bill.
What coudl the actualy payments be? The payments will vary by state and county, but University of Illinois economists with farmdoc daily, working with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University, published their estimates now that USDA has released marketing year average prices for nearly all eligible commodities. According to their estimates,
Total Projected Payments Lower Than USDA
Farmdoc daily puts total payments across all eligible commodities at just over $13.2 billion, below the $13.8 billion figure USDA has publicized. The researchers say the gap could come from farm-level PLC payment yields that county averages can’t capture, payments on irrigated acres, rice estimates that aren’t final, and individual payment limits.
$9 billion of the total will come from cotton, soybeans and wheat. According to their breakdown, the total figure would be a record-high for each, and includes:
The farmdoc estimates show final 2025 marketing year average prices came in at $4.16 per bushel for corn, $10.50 for soybeans and $5.06 for wheat, all below their effective reference prices. That produces PLC payment rates of $0.26 per bushel for corn, $0.21 for soybeans and $1.29 for wheat.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act added to the support. It raised PLC reference prices, lifted the ARC-CO coverage level from 86% to 90% and raised the per-acre payment cap from 10% to 12% of benchmark revenue. Because the law was signed after the 2025 enrollment period closed, farmers who enrolled in either program will receive whichever pays more.
Paul Neiffer’s Estimates
Paul Neiffer, a farm tax expert who ran his own estimates, says his work lands very close to the university’s.
“On corn, I was about four and a half billion, somewhere between $4.5 billion,” Neiffer says. “On wheat, I was a little bit less than $3 billion. And then on soybeans, I thought it’d be about $1.5 billion, the same on cotton and rice.”
Payments Are Already Going Out
Neiffer says while USDA says payments will be sent by the end of hte month, some money has already reached farmers.
“I’ve already heard some farmers have gotten payments, so they are starting to go out,” he says. “Their estimate of about $13.8 billion before the 15% cut for the base acres and the sequestration cut are very similar to what University of Illinois came out with.”
Farmers shouldn’t count on much county-level detail for PLC. “The problem is, I don’t know if we’re going to get
Payment Limits Depend on How Your Farm is Structured
Farmdoc daily notes that its totals include the 85% payment factor but not the 5.7% sequestration cut that will be applied to payments issued to producers.
But according to Neiffer, how an operation is set up will determine how much of the money a farm keeps.
“It definitely matters how your business is structured,” Neiffer says. “If you’re an LLC or an S Corp or a C Corp, you’re stuck with one payment. Even if you have five owners, you’re stuck with one payment. If you’re a partnership and you have five owners, you have five payment limits. So even after that $13.5 billion, there’s going to be another cut. And easily that cut could be a billion that’s going to reduce the payments even more.”
Smaller Than Congress Counted On
While The payments come from the One Big Beautiful Bill, and many farmers have been waiting on the relief lawmakers promised would arrive in October. Neiffer says the money falls short of the original projections.
“I would say they’re about 20% less than what was expected, what the CBO scored, because remember a year ago, pricing was definitely lower than it is now. So CBO was using those numbers,” he says. “I think they originally calculated about 16 billion, and net-net we’re probably going to be about 12 billion after all the base acre cuts and so on. So it’s down probably 25% less than they originally expected.”
Could Farmers See Bigger or Smaller Payments in 2026?
Farmers face a new decision for the 2026 crop year. USDA has opened enrollment, with a deadline of December 11, 2026. Unlike 2025, producers must choose between ARC and PLC for their base acres, because the higher-of-both allowance was a one-time rule. The OBBBA parameters stay in place for the 2026 through 2031 marketing years.
Neiffer says the extra base acres will help, but prices could cut the other way.
“Remember, they got the extra 30 million base acre increase, so that’s going to increase their payments on average about another 11 or 12 percent,” he says. “However, if pricing stays where it’s at right now, based on their projections, corn, soybeans and wheat might not have very much of a payment at all. So remember, this year it was about eight or nine billion with where prices are right now. If prices stay pretty good, maybe we’re only looking at three or four billion. So there could be a pretty big hit on ARC and PLC payments going out next year.”
Neiffer’s Advice? Plan for Taxes Now
With so much money flowing to farms this year, Neiffer says tax planning matters more than usual.
“I think the key is there’s been a lot of payments paid out to farmers this year, so this year is probably more important than any other year to make sure you meet with your CPA or your tax advisor to do a good year-end tax plan,” he says.
Last week, USDA announced that the Farm Service Agency’s Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) will generate approximately $13.8 billion in gross payments to eligible agricultural producers for the 2025 crop year. USDA says that’s the largest annual payout by far since these key safety net programs were established in the 2014 Farm Bill.
What coudl the actualy payments be? The payments will vary by state and county, but University of Illinois economists with farmdoc daily, working with colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Ohio State University, published their estimates now that USDA has released marketing year average prices for nearly all eligible commodities. According to their estimates,
- Corn payments are projected to average $51 per base acre, down from $62 in the original forecast.
- Soybeans are estimated at $29 per base acre
- Wheat at $47 per acre
- Seed cotton comes in at $119 per base acre, and peanuts at $244.
Total Projected Payments Lower Than USDA
Farmdoc daily puts total payments across all eligible commodities at just over $13.2 billion, below the $13.8 billion figure USDA has publicized. The researchers say the gap could come from farm-level PLC payment yields that county averages can’t capture, payments on irrigated acres, rice estimates that aren’t final, and individual payment limits.
$9 billion of the total will come from cotton, soybeans and wheat. According to their breakdown, the total figure would be a record-high for each, and includes:
- corn ($4.7 billion)
- soybeans ($1.5 billion)
- wheat ($2.9 billion) make up just over $9 billion of the total.
The farmdoc estimates show final 2025 marketing year average prices came in at $4.16 per bushel for corn, $10.50 for soybeans and $5.06 for wheat, all below their effective reference prices. That produces PLC payment rates of $0.26 per bushel for corn, $0.21 for soybeans and $1.29 for wheat.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act added to the support. It raised PLC reference prices, lifted the ARC-CO coverage level from 86% to 90% and raised the per-acre payment cap from 10% to 12% of benchmark revenue. Because the law was signed after the 2025 enrollment period closed, farmers who enrolled in either program will receive whichever pays more.
Paul Neiffer’s Estimates
Paul Neiffer, a farm tax expert who ran his own estimates, says his work lands very close to the university’s.
“On corn, I was about four and a half billion, somewhere between $4.5 billion,” Neiffer says. “On wheat, I was a little bit less than $3 billion. And then on soybeans, I thought it’d be about $1.5 billion, the same on cotton and rice.”
Payments Are Already Going Out
Neiffer says while USDA says payments will be sent by the end of hte month, some money has already reached farmers.
“I’ve already heard some farmers have gotten payments, so they are starting to go out,” he says. “Their estimate of about $13.8 billion before the 15% cut for the base acres and the sequestration cut are very similar to what University of Illinois came out with.”
Farmers shouldn’t count on much county-level detail for PLC. “The problem is, I don’t know if we’re going to get
Payment Limits Depend on How Your Farm is Structured
Farmdoc daily notes that its totals include the 85% payment factor but not the 5.7% sequestration cut that will be applied to payments issued to producers.
But according to Neiffer, how an operation is set up will determine how much of the money a farm keeps.
“It definitely matters how your business is structured,” Neiffer says. “If you’re an LLC or an S Corp or a C Corp, you’re stuck with one payment. Even if you have five owners, you’re stuck with one payment. If you’re a partnership and you have five owners, you have five payment limits. So even after that $13.5 billion, there’s going to be another cut. And easily that cut could be a billion that’s going to reduce the payments even more.”
Smaller Than Congress Counted On
While The payments come from the One Big Beautiful Bill, and many farmers have been waiting on the relief lawmakers promised would arrive in October. Neiffer says the money falls short of the original projections.
“I would say they’re about 20% less than what was expected, what the CBO scored, because remember a year ago, pricing was definitely lower than it is now. So CBO was using those numbers,” he says. “I think they originally calculated about 16 billion, and net-net we’re probably going to be about 12 billion after all the base acre cuts and so on. So it’s down probably 25% less than they originally expected.”
Could Farmers See Bigger or Smaller Payments in 2026?
Farmers face a new decision for the 2026 crop year. USDA has opened enrollment, with a deadline of December 11, 2026. Unlike 2025, producers must choose between ARC and PLC for their base acres, because the higher-of-both allowance was a one-time rule. The OBBBA parameters stay in place for the 2026 through 2031 marketing years.
Neiffer says the extra base acres will help, but prices could cut the other way.
“Remember, they got the extra 30 million base acre increase, so that’s going to increase their payments on average about another 11 or 12 percent,” he says. “However, if pricing stays where it’s at right now, based on their projections, corn, soybeans and wheat might not have very much of a payment at all. So remember, this year it was about eight or nine billion with where prices are right now. If prices stay pretty good, maybe we’re only looking at three or four billion. So there could be a pretty big hit on ARC and PLC payments going out next year.”
Neiffer’s Advice? Plan for Taxes Now
With so much money flowing to farms this year, Neiffer says tax planning matters more than usual.
“I think the key is there’s been a lot of payments paid out to farmers this year, so this year is probably more important than any other year to make sure you meet with your CPA or your tax advisor to do a good year-end tax plan,” he says.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
(Washington, D.C., October 14, 2026) – Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced a historic $3.3 billion loan to Oglethorpe Power Corporation to help finance its Smarr Combined-Cycle electric generating facility in Monroe County, Georgia, during a visit to the construction site. This new facility will deliver dependable, affordable power for generations while helping meet America’s growing energy needs.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
Farmers in Northwest Iowa had near to record corn and soybean crops last year and early harvest results are surprisingly similar.
Matt McCarthy, who farms near Newell, was expecting a smaller crop than 2025 just based on the mid-season weather challenges the crop experienced.
“We were dry during July, and we didn’t get an abundance amount of rain in August,” he says.
An abnormally wet September followed, and McCarthy’s farm received nearly 10 inches of rain.
Corn Yields Mirror 2025 Records Even with the weather challenges, he’s been pleasantly surprised with his early yield results, which are neck in neck with last year’s record corn crop and 5 bu. to 20 bu. per acre above his farm APH (actual production history) of 226 bu. per acre.
“I would say 225 bu. to 240 bu. catches probably the bulk of it. There’s going to be some better, but we haven’t gotten to the later maturity yet. I think as we get later, maybe it’ll get better, but we’ll find out if the corn put the weight on like we thought from the late rains,” he explains.
The late hybrids also pollinated after the heat and dryness in July and picked up September rains verses the early corn.
“We had a lot of tip back in the 109- to 114-day corn. It was a lot hotter and it was drier in July when it was pollinating and having its grain fill. Did we have less kernels than a year ago?” he asks.
Heat Offset by Lack of Disease
The biggest difference this year, according to McCarthy, has been a more consistent corn crop and the absence of disease.
“I don’t have the huge swings of the lower yields because of the rust and other issues. I didn’t get Southern rust, and we sprayed fungicide twice. I Y-dropped the nitrogen, so we split applied our nitrogen, and I think that helped as well,” he says.
Still, with the wet September some ear molds are showing up on corn. There’s also mild standability issues, and the crop is drying down quickly, making it key to get the crop harvested as soon as possible.
“It’s been a hot one with some wind. There’s some 106-day corn that’s hand-shelling at 15.5%, 15.8%. Even 113-day is 17%, 18%. It’s going to be a race to get it harvested before it gets below 15% or we’re giving up water weight.”
Quality Issues in Soybeans
The moisture was a double-edged sword for soybeans. While it brought higher yield potential, he’s seen quality issues with late-season diseases such as white mold. He’s also had discolored soybeans and some sprouting in the pod, which has been widespread in the western Corn Belt this fall.
McCarthy is selling his beans right off the combine and delivering them to the local crush plant, Platinum Crush in Alta, Iowa. The good news is he and farmers in his area have not had any loads docked or rejected by the elevator or local soy processing plant
Soybean Yields Benefit From Rain
He contends the late rains helped more than they hurt and it’s evident by his soybean yield results, which are running on par with last year’s record.
“I would say 65 to 80 to 85 if it was a longer-term cornfield and then went to a bean crop. It’s had three to five, six years of corn and then beans,” he says. “Those fields will always out produce the rotated fields.”
Profitability Up From 2025 With the strong yields, profit levels for McCarthy are also up from last year as prices for corn are slightly higher and beans are well above 2025.
“I would say on the grain side of things, yeah, there’s more optimism, and there’s a few more dollars this year than a year ago,” he says.
That’s also helping to offset the record diesel prices adding to the cost to harvest this year’s crop.
Matt McCarthy, who farms near Newell, was expecting a smaller crop than 2025 just based on the mid-season weather challenges the crop experienced.
“We were dry during July, and we didn’t get an abundance amount of rain in August,” he says.
An abnormally wet September followed, and McCarthy’s farm received nearly 10 inches of rain.
Corn Yields Mirror 2025 Records Even with the weather challenges, he’s been pleasantly surprised with his early yield results, which are neck in neck with last year’s record corn crop and 5 bu. to 20 bu. per acre above his farm APH (actual production history) of 226 bu. per acre.
“I would say 225 bu. to 240 bu. catches probably the bulk of it. There’s going to be some better, but we haven’t gotten to the later maturity yet. I think as we get later, maybe it’ll get better, but we’ll find out if the corn put the weight on like we thought from the late rains,” he explains.
The late hybrids also pollinated after the heat and dryness in July and picked up September rains verses the early corn.
“We had a lot of tip back in the 109- to 114-day corn. It was a lot hotter and it was drier in July when it was pollinating and having its grain fill. Did we have less kernels than a year ago?” he asks.
Heat Offset by Lack of Disease
The biggest difference this year, according to McCarthy, has been a more consistent corn crop and the absence of disease.
“I don’t have the huge swings of the lower yields because of the rust and other issues. I didn’t get Southern rust, and we sprayed fungicide twice. I Y-dropped the nitrogen, so we split applied our nitrogen, and I think that helped as well,” he says.
Still, with the wet September some ear molds are showing up on corn. There’s also mild standability issues, and the crop is drying down quickly, making it key to get the crop harvested as soon as possible.
“It’s been a hot one with some wind. There’s some 106-day corn that’s hand-shelling at 15.5%, 15.8%. Even 113-day is 17%, 18%. It’s going to be a race to get it harvested before it gets below 15% or we’re giving up water weight.”
Quality Issues in Soybeans
The moisture was a double-edged sword for soybeans. While it brought higher yield potential, he’s seen quality issues with late-season diseases such as white mold. He’s also had discolored soybeans and some sprouting in the pod, which has been widespread in the western Corn Belt this fall.
McCarthy is selling his beans right off the combine and delivering them to the local crush plant, Platinum Crush in Alta, Iowa. The good news is he and farmers in his area have not had any loads docked or rejected by the elevator or local soy processing plant
Soybean Yields Benefit From Rain
He contends the late rains helped more than they hurt and it’s evident by his soybean yield results, which are running on par with last year’s record.
“I would say 65 to 80 to 85 if it was a longer-term cornfield and then went to a bean crop. It’s had three to five, six years of corn and then beans,” he says. “Those fields will always out produce the rotated fields.”
Profitability Up From 2025 With the strong yields, profit levels for McCarthy are also up from last year as prices for corn are slightly higher and beans are well above 2025.
“I would say on the grain side of things, yeah, there’s more optimism, and there’s a few more dollars this year than a year ago,” he says.
That’s also helping to offset the record diesel prices adding to the cost to harvest this year’s crop.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
(Washington, D.C., October 13, 2026) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced it is awarding $86.6 million in grant funding to support the specialty crop industry through the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). The program funds innovative projects designed to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops.
Read the full article: USDA Announces $86.6 Million Investment into the U.S. Specialty Crop Industry
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
USDA’s October WASDE report
caught the corn market off guard Friday. The agency raised its national corn yield by nearly 3 bushels per acre to 181.2 bu. per acre, lifting production 234 million bu. to 16 billion bu. Corn ending stocks climbed 282 million bu. to about 1.85 billion bu., well above what the market expected.
With harvest underway, the frustration among farmers is rising. Not only do they now face tougher choices on when to sell, the one report caused corn prices to sell-off, costing farmers. Corn futures fell around 5%, with soybeans and wheat also under pressure.
One Missouri farmer says while he had already sold some of his new crop corn, he hadn’t sold enough. Friday’s move alone cost him about $40 per acre, even though he had some of his crop priced. For a farmer with 2,000 unpriced acres, that one report would amount to an average of $80,000 lost in a single day.
All Eyes on Nebraska
Much of the national increase traces back to one state. USDA raised Nebraska’s corn yield estimate by 11 bu. per acre to 188 bu. per acre in the October report. For context, USDA’s August forecast for Nebraska was 183 bu. per acre, so the September-to-October jump more than recovered a drop in between. But the question is why did Nebraska see such a major increase in a single month.
The size of the jump is drawing scrutiny because of what the field sample data shows.
How USDA Generates Yield Forecasts in October Report
Seth Meyer is director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. He served as USDA’s chief economist for five years and knows how the yield data is gathered. He says the change between September and October is built into the process.
“You’re switching from field-level counts, so they’re going out into the field and you’re getting farmer reporting,” Meyer says. “Now they’ve actually got harvest results. So you’re transitioning from pure field level without harvest for a maturing crop into a combination of that and farmers’ actual results.”
Meyer says that’s why an October yield change wasn’t a complete shock to him. He had told AgWeb before the report that USDA could surprise the market by going higher.
“October changes in yield are not uncommon when you have that kind of transition,” Meyer says, adding that large yield changes are less common from here forward, because farmers are now reporting actual yields.
No matter how USDA calculates yield in September to October, there is a glaring issues that came through with this report, specifically yield samples in Nebraska. AgriTalk AM host and Farm Journal Economist Chip Flory is following this issue closely.
“The September anomaly in Nebraska was detected because there are three data points to reconcile – irrigated, non-irrigated and all. In other states, there is just one data point. That doesn’t tell us if the sample count was at planned levels,” explains Flory. “Because the ear counts are ‘raw data,’ counts for Iowa could have been based on one field or 500 fields – there’s no way to tell. That’s why this is so important. The Nebraska problem in September could be an isolated problem, but it is possible this is a broader problem, not a one-state problem”
Flory says he does not question the methodology used in October and agrees the transition from survey-based estimates to actual harvest results is very important.
“But only 15% of the Nebraska corn crop was harvested as of October 4. That means field observations from NASDA enumerators still likely carried significant weight in the October crop estimate from NASS,” Flory points out.
Does the Increased Irrigated Sample in Nebraska Explain It?
Meyer doesn’t believe the swing in the sample mix explains the 11-bu. increase. NASS publishes plant counts by irrigated and nonirrigated fields, he says, but it doesn’t publish how those samples are weighted to reach a state yield.
“While there may have been an issue in terms of how many acres you were able to survey in the sample, it isn’t because of how they weighted irrigated versus nonirrigated that caused the increase in yields,” Meyer says. “When you are not getting your full sample, there’s a bigger chance of error. That’s absolutely part of it,” he says. “But look at the nonirrigated sample as well.”
For Flory, this reiterates the point of needing answers from NASS.
“If what Meyer is saying here is correct and the September Crop Production Report did not get a ‘full sample,’ that’s exactly why we need to understand why it was not a full sample,” says Flory. “Was it an isolated problem or is it an issue that is more widespread?”
“It Seems a Little Bit Sketchy”
Darren Frye, president and CEO of Water Street Solutions, agrees Nebraska is the story. He says the state accounted for about half of the total national increase.
“It was about half of the total increase. It represented 1.2 bushels over the national average,” Frye told Michelle Rook on her Markets Now podcast. “But obviously, there was another 1.5 from other places. A lot of it came from the Plains states, and very little of it came from anywhere else.”
It wasn’t just Nebraska. South Dakota’s yield was up 6 bu. to 151 bu. per acre, Texas was up 8 bu., Kansas was up 9 bu. and North Dakota was up 2 bu.
Frye questions how the Plains numbers square with the growing season.
“I don’t know how we had those types of moves when you have a 46% good-to-excellent Nebraska crop,” he says. “We’ll have to see if they adjust this back down in November, if this is the number we have to live with.”
Frye also points to the jump in ear counts as the major red flag in the October report.
“Ear counts went up 1,700 ears per acre in Nebraska. That seems like a big change from September,” Frye says. “I know they used more irrigated plots this time than nonirrigated plots. I don’t know why they switched that from September to October, other than they were trying to correct a mistake. But it seems a little bit sketchy when you have a lot of nonirrigated fields in Nebraska yielding under 110 bu. per acre, and we know last year they were pretty much record yields. So you just wonder how they’re going to come up with a yield anywhere close to 188 for Nebraska.”
His bigger concern is how the new numbers compare with last year’s crop, and considering how good the crop was last year in the Plains, that piece is also making him question the accuracy of the latest report.
“You would think that just because of how they blew it out of the water last year, you’d be lower than last year. This year’s weather makes it much lower than last year, and to see some of these yields come in pretty close to last year, like Nebraska for example, 188 bu. per acre versus 194 bu. per acre. That’s awful close to the same crop, and you had an excellent year versus not such an excellent year. So a lot of questions, and a lot of the answers from NASS will have to be dealt with over the next month or two.”
Is a Staffing Shortage to Blame?
The big question in Nebraska, according to Meyer, is why enumerators didn’t reach those irrigated fields in the first place. Irrigated and nonirrigated ground is “sprinkled amongst each other,” he says, so he wonders whether a geographic problem kept crews out of certain areas.
“I think that’s a legitimate question,” Meyer says. “I expect NASS will answer that.”
He doesn’t think a staffing shortage is the answer as to why NASDA didn’t sample more irrigated fields in September, otherwise you’d see sampling issues across a wider geography.
“If you were just short everywhere, then you wouldn’t see the skew of irrigated versus nonirrigated,” Meyer says. “So I think it has to be a geographic issue. I don’t know why.”
But other critics aren’t so sure staffing issues aren’t to blame. As one analyst told AgWeb, it’s possible NASDA didn’t have enough staff to collect the data in Nebraska.
Which Report is More Reliable?
After digging through the numbers, Meyer says he has more confidence in October than in September.
“I like the fact that they got out to those irrigated fields and were able to look through them,” he says. “If there was a concern, it might have been the September one, where you didn’t get into those irrigated fields and your potential error on irrigated yields was higher.”
Falling survey response rates are an issue. And according to Meyer, they are a concern about the impact on yield reports.
“Any time you have falling response rates, you worry about how much it hinders your accuracy,” Meyer says. NASS is trying to compensate with other techniques, he says, “but it’d be even better if farmers would respond.”
Farmer Frustration is Legitimate
With the report reaction on Friday, there’s no denying farmers are frustrated, especially considering this is the report the market will trade.
“The number that’s printed is the number that the algorithms trade. It clearly changes the trajectory of everything that we’ve thought for some time,” says Matt Bennett, of AgMarket.Net.
As for when USDA might revise the number, if ever, Frye says farmers shouldn’t count on it.
“We could be stuck with this yield somewhere between 179 and 182 bu, per acre all the way through,” he says. “Then it comes down to the stocks report. Was the crop really that big? It’ll show up in the stocks reports, but that’ll probably be March before we see that. I don’t think we have enough data in the December one. So we could live with this type of yield, this type of carryout, for some time.”
Meyer says farmer frustration is understandable, especially when one report can move the markets like Friday’s report did.
“Margins are poor. These people have their livelihoods on the line,” he says.
But he doesn’t think farmers deciding to pull back from answering surveys is the solution.
“I don’t think withdrawing your support and responses is the best answer either,” Meyer says.
He says NASS needs to keep being transparent and explain what happened in the field. He also sees a gap in how the data is understood.
“We have a knowledge gap between statisticians who say, ‘Well, clearly this is the number,’ and what people understand that to be,” Meyer says. “We’ve got a gap that we need to try and close.”
A Look at the Balance Sheet
Moving forward, Meyer says the bigger crop adds to a balance sheet he already watches closely. He says the feed and residual number for 2025-26 looked too large relative to animal numbers, and it still looks high for the coming year.
“Now we’ve got a little bit of a bigger crop,” Meyer says. “We’re really going to have to watch that disappearance as we go forward.”
With harvest underway, the frustration among farmers is rising. Not only do they now face tougher choices on when to sell, the one report caused corn prices to sell-off, costing farmers. Corn futures fell around 5%, with soybeans and wheat also under pressure.
One Missouri farmer says while he had already sold some of his new crop corn, he hadn’t sold enough. Friday’s move alone cost him about $40 per acre, even though he had some of his crop priced. For a farmer with 2,000 unpriced acres, that one report would amount to an average of $80,000 lost in a single day.
All Eyes on Nebraska
Much of the national increase traces back to one state. USDA raised Nebraska’s corn yield estimate by 11 bu. per acre to 188 bu. per acre in the October report. For context, USDA’s August forecast for Nebraska was 183 bu. per acre, so the September-to-October jump more than recovered a drop in between. But the question is why did Nebraska see such a major increase in a single month.
The size of the jump is drawing scrutiny because of what the field sample data shows.
- In September, the data suggests about 90% of the Nebraska fields sampled were nonirrigated, only 10% irrigated
- In October, the balance of ear counts was a more typical measurement, with 55% irrigated and 45% nonirrigated.
How USDA Generates Yield Forecasts in October Report
Seth Meyer is director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. He served as USDA’s chief economist for five years and knows how the yield data is gathered. He says the change between September and October is built into the process.
“You’re switching from field-level counts, so they’re going out into the field and you’re getting farmer reporting,” Meyer says. “Now they’ve actually got harvest results. So you’re transitioning from pure field level without harvest for a maturing crop into a combination of that and farmers’ actual results.”
Meyer says that’s why an October yield change wasn’t a complete shock to him. He had told AgWeb before the report that USDA could surprise the market by going higher.
“October changes in yield are not uncommon when you have that kind of transition,” Meyer says, adding that large yield changes are less common from here forward, because farmers are now reporting actual yields.
No matter how USDA calculates yield in September to October, there is a glaring issues that came through with this report, specifically yield samples in Nebraska. AgriTalk AM host and Farm Journal Economist Chip Flory is following this issue closely.
“The September anomaly in Nebraska was detected because there are three data points to reconcile – irrigated, non-irrigated and all. In other states, there is just one data point. That doesn’t tell us if the sample count was at planned levels,” explains Flory. “Because the ear counts are ‘raw data,’ counts for Iowa could have been based on one field or 500 fields – there’s no way to tell. That’s why this is so important. The Nebraska problem in September could be an isolated problem, but it is possible this is a broader problem, not a one-state problem”
Flory says he does not question the methodology used in October and agrees the transition from survey-based estimates to actual harvest results is very important.
“But only 15% of the Nebraska corn crop was harvested as of October 4. That means field observations from NASDA enumerators still likely carried significant weight in the October crop estimate from NASS,” Flory points out.
Does the Increased Irrigated Sample in Nebraska Explain It?
Meyer doesn’t believe the swing in the sample mix explains the 11-bu. increase. NASS publishes plant counts by irrigated and nonirrigated fields, he says, but it doesn’t publish how those samples are weighted to reach a state yield.
“While there may have been an issue in terms of how many acres you were able to survey in the sample, it isn’t because of how they weighted irrigated versus nonirrigated that caused the increase in yields,” Meyer says. “When you are not getting your full sample, there’s a bigger chance of error. That’s absolutely part of it,” he says. “But look at the nonirrigated sample as well.”
For Flory, this reiterates the point of needing answers from NASS.
“If what Meyer is saying here is correct and the September Crop Production Report did not get a ‘full sample,’ that’s exactly why we need to understand why it was not a full sample,” says Flory. “Was it an isolated problem or is it an issue that is more widespread?”
“It Seems a Little Bit Sketchy”
Darren Frye, president and CEO of Water Street Solutions, agrees Nebraska is the story. He says the state accounted for about half of the total national increase.
“It was about half of the total increase. It represented 1.2 bushels over the national average,” Frye told Michelle Rook on her Markets Now podcast. “But obviously, there was another 1.5 from other places. A lot of it came from the Plains states, and very little of it came from anywhere else.”
It wasn’t just Nebraska. South Dakota’s yield was up 6 bu. to 151 bu. per acre, Texas was up 8 bu., Kansas was up 9 bu. and North Dakota was up 2 bu.
Frye questions how the Plains numbers square with the growing season.
“I don’t know how we had those types of moves when you have a 46% good-to-excellent Nebraska crop,” he says. “We’ll have to see if they adjust this back down in November, if this is the number we have to live with.”
Frye also points to the jump in ear counts as the major red flag in the October report.
“Ear counts went up 1,700 ears per acre in Nebraska. That seems like a big change from September,” Frye says. “I know they used more irrigated plots this time than nonirrigated plots. I don’t know why they switched that from September to October, other than they were trying to correct a mistake. But it seems a little bit sketchy when you have a lot of nonirrigated fields in Nebraska yielding under 110 bu. per acre, and we know last year they were pretty much record yields. So you just wonder how they’re going to come up with a yield anywhere close to 188 for Nebraska.”
His bigger concern is how the new numbers compare with last year’s crop, and considering how good the crop was last year in the Plains, that piece is also making him question the accuracy of the latest report.
“You would think that just because of how they blew it out of the water last year, you’d be lower than last year. This year’s weather makes it much lower than last year, and to see some of these yields come in pretty close to last year, like Nebraska for example, 188 bu. per acre versus 194 bu. per acre. That’s awful close to the same crop, and you had an excellent year versus not such an excellent year. So a lot of questions, and a lot of the answers from NASS will have to be dealt with over the next month or two.”
Is a Staffing Shortage to Blame?
The big question in Nebraska, according to Meyer, is why enumerators didn’t reach those irrigated fields in the first place. Irrigated and nonirrigated ground is “sprinkled amongst each other,” he says, so he wonders whether a geographic problem kept crews out of certain areas.
“I think that’s a legitimate question,” Meyer says. “I expect NASS will answer that.”
He doesn’t think a staffing shortage is the answer as to why NASDA didn’t sample more irrigated fields in September, otherwise you’d see sampling issues across a wider geography.
“If you were just short everywhere, then you wouldn’t see the skew of irrigated versus nonirrigated,” Meyer says. “So I think it has to be a geographic issue. I don’t know why.”
But other critics aren’t so sure staffing issues aren’t to blame. As one analyst told AgWeb, it’s possible NASDA didn’t have enough staff to collect the data in Nebraska.
Which Report is More Reliable?
After digging through the numbers, Meyer says he has more confidence in October than in September.
“I like the fact that they got out to those irrigated fields and were able to look through them,” he says. “If there was a concern, it might have been the September one, where you didn’t get into those irrigated fields and your potential error on irrigated yields was higher.”
Falling survey response rates are an issue. And according to Meyer, they are a concern about the impact on yield reports.
“Any time you have falling response rates, you worry about how much it hinders your accuracy,” Meyer says. NASS is trying to compensate with other techniques, he says, “but it’d be even better if farmers would respond.”
Farmer Frustration is Legitimate
With the report reaction on Friday, there’s no denying farmers are frustrated, especially considering this is the report the market will trade.
“The number that’s printed is the number that the algorithms trade. It clearly changes the trajectory of everything that we’ve thought for some time,” says Matt Bennett, of AgMarket.Net.
As for when USDA might revise the number, if ever, Frye says farmers shouldn’t count on it.
“We could be stuck with this yield somewhere between 179 and 182 bu, per acre all the way through,” he says. “Then it comes down to the stocks report. Was the crop really that big? It’ll show up in the stocks reports, but that’ll probably be March before we see that. I don’t think we have enough data in the December one. So we could live with this type of yield, this type of carryout, for some time.”
Meyer says farmer frustration is understandable, especially when one report can move the markets like Friday’s report did.
“Margins are poor. These people have their livelihoods on the line,” he says.
But he doesn’t think farmers deciding to pull back from answering surveys is the solution.
“I don’t think withdrawing your support and responses is the best answer either,” Meyer says.
He says NASS needs to keep being transparent and explain what happened in the field. He also sees a gap in how the data is understood.
“We have a knowledge gap between statisticians who say, ‘Well, clearly this is the number,’ and what people understand that to be,” Meyer says. “We’ve got a gap that we need to try and close.”
A Look at the Balance Sheet
Moving forward, Meyer says the bigger crop adds to a balance sheet he already watches closely. He says the feed and residual number for 2025-26 looked too large relative to animal numbers, and it still looks high for the coming year.
“Now we’ve got a little bit of a bigger crop,” Meyer says. “We’re really going to have to watch that disappearance as we go forward.”
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with Farm Journal - Dairy Today
Faster than the pull of silk from a pocket, Alec White slipped into the grind of a horror show. Foot snared in the blades of an unforgiving auger, White flailed in the corn and chalky floor of an Indiana grain bin, hands grasping in vain for anything. Everything. Nothing.
Five seconds, boot shredded. Ten seconds, foot mangled. Fifteen seconds, lower leg disappearing. Stuck in a spiral of endless torque, White knew the inescapable truth: What the corkscrew gets, it keeps. Helluva way to go.
However, White possessed remarkable resilience and a phenomenal ability to maintain focus in the most extreme of situations. “I can still see it happening so clearly,” he says. “It’s like a movie that plays in my head. Every instinct to keep calm was racing through my body.”
Mind. Heart. Soul. Survival at all costs.
Touching the Void
On a workaday Thursday, May 30, 2024, surrounded by the plentiful flats of northeast Indiana’s Wells County, White woke at 6:30 a.m., and rigged a slender, 6’3” frame in khaki shorts, leather belt, black t-shirt, and steel-toed, 10.5 Thorogood lace-up 6” boots.
Against a bruised sky threatening rain, White, 23, climbed in the cab of a brown Dodge Ram 1500 and scrambled away from home, bound for his manager’s role at Phenix Farms outside Geneva.
Alec White, far right, with the Phenix Farms crew.(Photo by AW)
“Because of the rains, it was a good time to sweep out a series of bins, and we started out normal as could be,” White recalls. “There was nothing out of sorts; nothing wrong; nothing unusual. It was just a day that felt ordinary.”
However, at 10:30 a.m., approaching the last bin of the morning as temps climbed toward the mid-70s, White left behind the “ordinary” and stepped through the door of a 48’-diameter structure with an 80,000-bushel capacity. Unbeknownst to the young Indiana farmer, he was perilously close to touching the void.
Repetition Kills
The grain bin was empty. Almost.
Piled to the right of the bin entrance, a stubborn 400-bushel mound of corn partially clumped by moisture, sat the final target of cleanup. Armed with scoop shovels and brooms, White and a single co-worker began moving grain toward the growl of a power sweep—characterized by an auger partially covered by a shield, moving around the bin in clockwork fashion, pulling grain via helicoid flighting to a sump hole. Simplified: a giant, corn-eating screw.
“It started to suck me in,” White describes. “From my heel, it ran over my foot, and then took me down to a carrier bearing where it stopped and wrapped me around it.”(Photo public domain)
However, despite the sweep’s design, the mechanism repeatedly caught on the bin floor as White worked. At each instance, he responded in the manner of many a farmer comfortable with repetition and pressed for time: He kicked the backplate of the auger, nudging the sweep back on course.
“One too many times,” White says in a seasoned manner vastly exceeding his age. “I knew better.”
On went the cleanup, until, once again, the sweep hitched.
Right leg positioned toward the auger, White kicked out with his left leg. His foot deflected up and over the backplate. In a millisecond, his bootheel was inextricably snagged in the auger’s flighting.
Amid the din and dust, White stumbled over the sweep and tried to yank free. No forgiveness. No tug-of-war. A death dance was on—and it would last at least 20 seconds.
“It started to suck me in,” White describes. “From my heel, it ran over my foot, and then took me down to a carrier bearing where it stopped and wrapped me around it. There was no pain. Only adrenaline.”
“I’ve read or heard about other people having accidents and they describe it all as a blur or a flash in time. Not me. This was the longest 20 to 30 seconds of my life. I remember it all.”
Even Keel
In simplest terms, White, whose only prior injury in life was a broken arm in childhood, was in danger of being torn apart.
Right leg over left, he was knocked to his back on the corn and corrugated steel of the bin floor, his entire torso mere inches from the auger’s whir. The flighting bit into his right arm, causing White to instantly jerk to his left side, surrendering his back to the auger, but momentarily protecting another limb from entrapment.
Alec White, third from right, with his brothers in farms.(Photo by AW)
Once more, the auger took another bite, pulling a small chunk of flesh from White’s right buttock through his shorts. And all the while, the sweep chewed on White’s lower leg, splitting the steel in his boot and ripping the leather down the side, as both footwear and sock disappeared toward the sump.
In the madness of the moment, White’s co-worker, who stood less than 5’ away, rushed in to help, trying to pull White’s body from the entanglement. No dice. Precious seconds drained off the clock, despite a power sweep shutoff switch outside the bin door.
The direct move, from the get-go, was a dash to the switch panel, but amid the gruesome chaos unfolding on the bin floor, instinct drove attention toward the extrication of White’s leg from the auger.
“Hindsight is so easy, but that’s not how it worked out,” White recalls. “I finally told him to turn off the sweep shutoff. Truth is, I’m indebted to him forever and if he hadn’t been there, I’d have died. Him being inside with me was my saving grace. He ran out the door, hit the red switch, and stopped the auger.”
Instantly, the mayhem within the metallic bin went quiet as a teardrop. White’s leg was wrapped around the twists of the auger, shattered and grotesquely stretched into multiple pieces south of the shin. The gore told the story. White was now in a race against blood loss and shock.
Covered in corn and unable to see the extent of his injuries, White kept an even keel. Methodical. Deliberate. He removed his leather belt and cinched it around his left leg, as his co-worker pulled the belt a further 3” and maintained an iron hold. White’s urgency echoed in the bin: Whatever you do, don’t let go.
Bible and Phone
Tourniquet in place, White pulled phone from pocket and dialed 911. He then called his mother, describing the dilemma without heavy detail, and promising her that rescue was en route. However, the surreal call was layered by the unspoken.
“I talked to my mom for about 45 seconds. I tried to reassure her, as best I could, that I’d be fine. It’s a tough, tough thing to call somebody who loves you and basically tell them everything is OK when you don’t know if it is.”
Waves of adrenaline continued to flood White, holding back a flood of pain on the periphery.
Phone calls completed, he began a 30-minute, ultra-stakes waiting game: Maintain composure and fend off panic.
“At that point, I didn’t want to know about the extent of my injuries. I just wanted to keep focus on rescue and push away thoughts of dying. Those thoughts were trying to come in, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on my condition. I forced myself to calmly wait for help.”
Inside 15 minutes, volunteer rescuers and White’s boss arrived on-site. The questions over extraction from a 350-lb. auger began immediately. Reverse the auger? Cut the auger? All action was paused until the arrival of paramedics and painkillers.
“I remember four or five volunteer firemen and a policeman in the bin. Then, after about another 15 minutes, an EMT team arrived and gave me several drugs, including ketamine—a dose of horse tranquilizer. Everything started blurring and I went into a stupor, but I wasn’t totally knocked out.”
There was no consideration of amputation on-site. Rather, halving the auger was discussed, but the associated vibration generated by an estimated 10-minute cutting process was deemed detrimental. Instead, rescuers chose to spin White free.
“They decided to turn the clutch off and turn the auger backwards. They then backed me out of it. They said I was screaming, but I don’t remember that part. The drugs had me too foggy.”
Out of the auger, beyond the bin, and into the air via helicopter. “The drugs finally wore off, and my adrenaline was all used up, so the pain was burning. Kinda like fire. I was asking the obvious question: ‘Am I gonna lose my leg?’”
The experienced medical team deflected, but they knew. They knew.
Landing at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, White quickly was surrounded by trauma doctors. Miraculously, he suffered no clipped arteries. However, his left lower limb was mangled and crushed—irretrievable.
“I remember the surgeons telling me they’d save my leg if they could. I asked for a Bible and my phone, and then a clergyman walked in and prayed with me. And then it was time.”
As nurses cut away his clothing, White stared in surreal silence before drifting to unconsciousness. Fade to black.
On With the Farm
Two days later, White awoke, intubated and unable to speak.
By pen and pad, questioning his family, he learned his lower leg was gone 8” below the knee.
“I still have the writing pad and it contains some very colorful words,” he chuckles. “Right away, my attitude was to get going. I couldn’t allow pity or blame in the door. I was blessed with some wonderful people around to help me.”
“I’m never going to be afraid to tell this story, because I hope it helps someone avoid what I did, or I hope it helps someone dealing with a tough situation,” White says.(Photo by AW)
Three weeks later, on crutches, White was back in a sprayer, rolling across a cornfield.
Yet, White doesn’t sugarcoat the road home. Recovery, he emphasizes, was the most difficult chapter of his life. “It was the hardest thing imaginable, at least for me. My nerve endings got inflamed and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. Painkillers only work so well.”
“Worse than the pain in the long-term, I had a private mental battle. I don’t want to pretend that I didn’t have some really bad days. I asked the Lord a lot of questions while I tried to wrap my head around what happened, but it brought me closer to God and more grateful for everything I have in life. The easiest thing to is blame or lash out, but that’s a storm everyone has to weather.”
On August 22, 2024, roughly three months after his accident, White received a prosthetic and began learning to walk. “Yeah, I looked a little goofy at first. But who cares?”
White tossed the crutches. On with farming. On with life.
Buck Stops Here
Farming is perennially ranked among the most dangerous occupations. In 2025, according to a report steered by Bill Field, professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University, 48 cases involving agricultural confined spaces were documented (22 fatal and 26 non-fatal).
Grain entrapment was the No. 1 threat, featuring in 21 cases. However, Field’s report also noted 10 asphyxiations, 7 falls from grain structures, 4 livestock waste accidents—and 8 entanglements by in-floor or sweep augers.
“I can still see it happening so clearly,” White says. “It’s like a movie that plays in my head.”(Photo by AW)
Testament to the grim statistics, perched on a pedestal inside his office at Phenix Farms, White passes by a daily safety reminder: a mangled Thorogood left boot, size 10.5.
The boot holds multiple lessons for farmers, he explains.
“First off, always keep a charged phone on you. Second, there’s no better safety tool than your brain, and that means thinking ahead. As farmers, we’re all going to be close to dangerous situations, and just because you’ve gotten away with something 100 times doesn’t mean the next one won’t get you. And your leg or your life are terrible, terrible prices to pay for getting in a hurry.”
For those injured or already dealing with adversity, what is White’s advice?
“Tough, tough days are going to come at first, but if you keep battling, the good days are coming back. Get off every pill as fast as you can. The painkillers or antidepressants numb issues that’ll surface later anyway. Stay off them because they’ll do more harm than good.”
“Last, I’d tell anyone to swallow their pride and rely on others for help. As farmers, we’re self-reliant to a fault, and that results in punishing the people around you, the same people that love you. It’s easy to push others away, and that was almost my biggest downfall. Instead, be sincerely grateful, always stay busy, put your energy into a goal—and get there.”
No one can wash away the past, least of all White. Each morning, he straps on the prosthetic before hitting farmland. Unquestionably, it is now part and parcel of his being, and a permanent reminder of May 30, 2023.
Yet, his attitude is a thousand miles from self-pity, with the distance growing further by the day. No blame. No excuses. The buck stops here.
“Almost every farmer has kicked a sweep, even though we know better,” he concludes. “I kicked it and I paid. It wasn’t the bin’s fault or the machinery’s fault or someone else’s fault. I’m never going to be afraid to tell this story, because I hope it helps someone avoid what I did, or I hope it helps someone dealing with a tough situation. We all have choices to make.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
Five seconds, boot shredded. Ten seconds, foot mangled. Fifteen seconds, lower leg disappearing. Stuck in a spiral of endless torque, White knew the inescapable truth: What the corkscrew gets, it keeps. Helluva way to go.
However, White possessed remarkable resilience and a phenomenal ability to maintain focus in the most extreme of situations. “I can still see it happening so clearly,” he says. “It’s like a movie that plays in my head. Every instinct to keep calm was racing through my body.”
Mind. Heart. Soul. Survival at all costs.
Touching the Void
On a workaday Thursday, May 30, 2024, surrounded by the plentiful flats of northeast Indiana’s Wells County, White woke at 6:30 a.m., and rigged a slender, 6’3” frame in khaki shorts, leather belt, black t-shirt, and steel-toed, 10.5 Thorogood lace-up 6” boots.
Against a bruised sky threatening rain, White, 23, climbed in the cab of a brown Dodge Ram 1500 and scrambled away from home, bound for his manager’s role at Phenix Farms outside Geneva.
Alec White, far right, with the Phenix Farms crew.(Photo by AW)
“Because of the rains, it was a good time to sweep out a series of bins, and we started out normal as could be,” White recalls. “There was nothing out of sorts; nothing wrong; nothing unusual. It was just a day that felt ordinary.”
However, at 10:30 a.m., approaching the last bin of the morning as temps climbed toward the mid-70s, White left behind the “ordinary” and stepped through the door of a 48’-diameter structure with an 80,000-bushel capacity. Unbeknownst to the young Indiana farmer, he was perilously close to touching the void.
Repetition Kills
The grain bin was empty. Almost.
Piled to the right of the bin entrance, a stubborn 400-bushel mound of corn partially clumped by moisture, sat the final target of cleanup. Armed with scoop shovels and brooms, White and a single co-worker began moving grain toward the growl of a power sweep—characterized by an auger partially covered by a shield, moving around the bin in clockwork fashion, pulling grain via helicoid flighting to a sump hole. Simplified: a giant, corn-eating screw.
“It started to suck me in,” White describes. “From my heel, it ran over my foot, and then took me down to a carrier bearing where it stopped and wrapped me around it.”(Photo public domain)
However, despite the sweep’s design, the mechanism repeatedly caught on the bin floor as White worked. At each instance, he responded in the manner of many a farmer comfortable with repetition and pressed for time: He kicked the backplate of the auger, nudging the sweep back on course.
“One too many times,” White says in a seasoned manner vastly exceeding his age. “I knew better.”
On went the cleanup, until, once again, the sweep hitched.
Right leg positioned toward the auger, White kicked out with his left leg. His foot deflected up and over the backplate. In a millisecond, his bootheel was inextricably snagged in the auger’s flighting.
Amid the din and dust, White stumbled over the sweep and tried to yank free. No forgiveness. No tug-of-war. A death dance was on—and it would last at least 20 seconds.
“It started to suck me in,” White describes. “From my heel, it ran over my foot, and then took me down to a carrier bearing where it stopped and wrapped me around it. There was no pain. Only adrenaline.”
“I’ve read or heard about other people having accidents and they describe it all as a blur or a flash in time. Not me. This was the longest 20 to 30 seconds of my life. I remember it all.”
Even Keel
In simplest terms, White, whose only prior injury in life was a broken arm in childhood, was in danger of being torn apart.
Right leg over left, he was knocked to his back on the corn and corrugated steel of the bin floor, his entire torso mere inches from the auger’s whir. The flighting bit into his right arm, causing White to instantly jerk to his left side, surrendering his back to the auger, but momentarily protecting another limb from entrapment.
Alec White, third from right, with his brothers in farms.(Photo by AW)
Once more, the auger took another bite, pulling a small chunk of flesh from White’s right buttock through his shorts. And all the while, the sweep chewed on White’s lower leg, splitting the steel in his boot and ripping the leather down the side, as both footwear and sock disappeared toward the sump.
In the madness of the moment, White’s co-worker, who stood less than 5’ away, rushed in to help, trying to pull White’s body from the entanglement. No dice. Precious seconds drained off the clock, despite a power sweep shutoff switch outside the bin door.
The direct move, from the get-go, was a dash to the switch panel, but amid the gruesome chaos unfolding on the bin floor, instinct drove attention toward the extrication of White’s leg from the auger.
“Hindsight is so easy, but that’s not how it worked out,” White recalls. “I finally told him to turn off the sweep shutoff. Truth is, I’m indebted to him forever and if he hadn’t been there, I’d have died. Him being inside with me was my saving grace. He ran out the door, hit the red switch, and stopped the auger.”
Instantly, the mayhem within the metallic bin went quiet as a teardrop. White’s leg was wrapped around the twists of the auger, shattered and grotesquely stretched into multiple pieces south of the shin. The gore told the story. White was now in a race against blood loss and shock.
Covered in corn and unable to see the extent of his injuries, White kept an even keel. Methodical. Deliberate. He removed his leather belt and cinched it around his left leg, as his co-worker pulled the belt a further 3” and maintained an iron hold. White’s urgency echoed in the bin: Whatever you do, don’t let go.
Bible and Phone
Tourniquet in place, White pulled phone from pocket and dialed 911. He then called his mother, describing the dilemma without heavy detail, and promising her that rescue was en route. However, the surreal call was layered by the unspoken.
“I talked to my mom for about 45 seconds. I tried to reassure her, as best I could, that I’d be fine. It’s a tough, tough thing to call somebody who loves you and basically tell them everything is OK when you don’t know if it is.”
Waves of adrenaline continued to flood White, holding back a flood of pain on the periphery.
Phone calls completed, he began a 30-minute, ultra-stakes waiting game: Maintain composure and fend off panic.
“At that point, I didn’t want to know about the extent of my injuries. I just wanted to keep focus on rescue and push away thoughts of dying. Those thoughts were trying to come in, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on my condition. I forced myself to calmly wait for help.”
Inside 15 minutes, volunteer rescuers and White’s boss arrived on-site. The questions over extraction from a 350-lb. auger began immediately. Reverse the auger? Cut the auger? All action was paused until the arrival of paramedics and painkillers.
“I remember four or five volunteer firemen and a policeman in the bin. Then, after about another 15 minutes, an EMT team arrived and gave me several drugs, including ketamine—a dose of horse tranquilizer. Everything started blurring and I went into a stupor, but I wasn’t totally knocked out.”
There was no consideration of amputation on-site. Rather, halving the auger was discussed, but the associated vibration generated by an estimated 10-minute cutting process was deemed detrimental. Instead, rescuers chose to spin White free.
“They decided to turn the clutch off and turn the auger backwards. They then backed me out of it. They said I was screaming, but I don’t remember that part. The drugs had me too foggy.”
Out of the auger, beyond the bin, and into the air via helicopter. “The drugs finally wore off, and my adrenaline was all used up, so the pain was burning. Kinda like fire. I was asking the obvious question: ‘Am I gonna lose my leg?’”
The experienced medical team deflected, but they knew. They knew.
Landing at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, White quickly was surrounded by trauma doctors. Miraculously, he suffered no clipped arteries. However, his left lower limb was mangled and crushed—irretrievable.
“I remember the surgeons telling me they’d save my leg if they could. I asked for a Bible and my phone, and then a clergyman walked in and prayed with me. And then it was time.”
As nurses cut away his clothing, White stared in surreal silence before drifting to unconsciousness. Fade to black.
On With the Farm
Two days later, White awoke, intubated and unable to speak.
By pen and pad, questioning his family, he learned his lower leg was gone 8” below the knee.
“I still have the writing pad and it contains some very colorful words,” he chuckles. “Right away, my attitude was to get going. I couldn’t allow pity or blame in the door. I was blessed with some wonderful people around to help me.”
“I’m never going to be afraid to tell this story, because I hope it helps someone avoid what I did, or I hope it helps someone dealing with a tough situation,” White says.(Photo by AW)
Three weeks later, on crutches, White was back in a sprayer, rolling across a cornfield.
Yet, White doesn’t sugarcoat the road home. Recovery, he emphasizes, was the most difficult chapter of his life. “It was the hardest thing imaginable, at least for me. My nerve endings got inflamed and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. Painkillers only work so well.”
“Worse than the pain in the long-term, I had a private mental battle. I don’t want to pretend that I didn’t have some really bad days. I asked the Lord a lot of questions while I tried to wrap my head around what happened, but it brought me closer to God and more grateful for everything I have in life. The easiest thing to is blame or lash out, but that’s a storm everyone has to weather.”
On August 22, 2024, roughly three months after his accident, White received a prosthetic and began learning to walk. “Yeah, I looked a little goofy at first. But who cares?”
White tossed the crutches. On with farming. On with life.
Buck Stops Here
Farming is perennially ranked among the most dangerous occupations. In 2025, according to a report steered by Bill Field, professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University, 48 cases involving agricultural confined spaces were documented (22 fatal and 26 non-fatal).
Grain entrapment was the No. 1 threat, featuring in 21 cases. However, Field’s report also noted 10 asphyxiations, 7 falls from grain structures, 4 livestock waste accidents—and 8 entanglements by in-floor or sweep augers.
“I can still see it happening so clearly,” White says. “It’s like a movie that plays in my head.”(Photo by AW)
Testament to the grim statistics, perched on a pedestal inside his office at Phenix Farms, White passes by a daily safety reminder: a mangled Thorogood left boot, size 10.5.
The boot holds multiple lessons for farmers, he explains.
“First off, always keep a charged phone on you. Second, there’s no better safety tool than your brain, and that means thinking ahead. As farmers, we’re all going to be close to dangerous situations, and just because you’ve gotten away with something 100 times doesn’t mean the next one won’t get you. And your leg or your life are terrible, terrible prices to pay for getting in a hurry.”
For those injured or already dealing with adversity, what is White’s advice?
“Tough, tough days are going to come at first, but if you keep battling, the good days are coming back. Get off every pill as fast as you can. The painkillers or antidepressants numb issues that’ll surface later anyway. Stay off them because they’ll do more harm than good.”
“Last, I’d tell anyone to swallow their pride and rely on others for help. As farmers, we’re self-reliant to a fault, and that results in punishing the people around you, the same people that love you. It’s easy to push others away, and that was almost my biggest downfall. Instead, be sincerely grateful, always stay busy, put your energy into a goal—and get there.”
No one can wash away the past, least of all White. Each morning, he straps on the prosthetic before hitting farmland. Unquestionably, it is now part and parcel of his being, and a permanent reminder of May 30, 2023.
Yet, his attitude is a thousand miles from self-pity, with the distance growing further by the day. No blame. No excuses. The buck stops here.
“Almost every farmer has kicked a sweep, even though we know better,” he concludes. “I kicked it and I paid. It wasn’t the bin’s fault or the machinery’s fault or someone else’s fault. I’m never going to be afraid to tell this story, because I hope it helps someone avoid what I did, or I hope it helps someone dealing with a tough situation. We all have choices to make.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
When Conservation Backfires: Landowner Defeats Feds in Mindboggling Private Property Case
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(Washington, D.C., October 12, 2026) – Today, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins urged state partners to review their wolf management policies, strengthen engagement with livestock producers, and work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to address wolf predation. This outreach follows President Trump’s Executive Order 14425, titled “Supporting America’s Ranchers,” and builds on the Trump Administration’s commitment to give producers the tools they need to protect their herds and livelihoods.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
(Washington, D.C., October 9, 2026) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reminds communities, farmers and ranchers, families and small businesses in the path of Hurricane Isaias that USDA has programs that provide assistance in the wake of disasters. USDA staff in regional, state, and county offices stand ready to assist as conditions develop and to support recovery.
Learn more about Agriculture in New York with USDA News
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