A top Agriculture Department official said that the Trump administration will distribute its long-awaited bailout package to farmers largely based on the number of acres they planted in 2025.
However, he was noncommittal about whether officials would be able to send a second round of aid, following criticism from farm groups and lawmakers that the administration’s planned $12 billion rollout won’t be enough.
“There probably will not be anything else from USDA at this time. We feel like we’ve done all that we can from a budget perspective,” Richard Fordyce, Agriculture undersecretary for farm production and conservation, told POLITICO in an interview.
Fordyce, who previously headed USDA’s Farm Service Agency under the first Trump administration, acknowledged the new pressures officials are facing heading into 2026: a farm economy that’s squeezing producers, changing agricultural technology and concerns that local farmer-facing offices aren’t staffed to meet demand after this year’s employee departures.
