PEORIA, Ill. — More than $10 billion in reported financial aid for soybean farmers and producers of other select commodities was reportedly held up as of Farm World press time, Friday, October 10, due to the federal government shutdown that began nine days earlier. 

The delay and its cause was reported by several news sources on Wednesday, October 8, just days after the Trump administration and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) hinted that relief in the form of cash payments was imminent. The cash bailout is due largely to reduced trade markets available to soybean growers, who are facing a possible record harvest with no fall purchases on the books from China, their biggest export customer. 

According to the New York Times, Trump said on Monday, October 6 at the White House, “I’m going to do some farm stuff this week.” Trump’s statement came days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected the administration to make an announcement on Tuesday, October 7 about aid to farmers who have lost sales to China.

The Office of Management and Budget has allocated up to $12 billion to $13 billion from an internal USDA account to fund the bailouts for farmers, according to a report from Politico. “No final decision has been made on just how much of the money will go toward farm aid, the people said, and the package won’t be coming out any time soon. The timeline has been further delayed because some USDA political appointees have been furloughed during the shutdown,” Politico reported. 

Other news reports said that the greenlit money will be in the form of a $13 billion transfer from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to the Office of Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins, and that the transfer was authorized on September 28. The CCC, however, is said to be waiting for Congress to fund USDA, which would allow USDA to reload their $30 billion annual fund.

The Des Moines Register, after a call with reporters on Wednesday, Oct. 8, said that Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley promised the Trump administration could currently provide just $4 billion from the coffers of the CCC. Appropriating additional aid for farmers — potentially “tens of billions of dollars,” Grassley said colleagues on the Senate Agriculture Committee told him — would require Congress to act.

Though Trump has suggested the administration could provide aid to farmers from revenue generated from tariffs,  that approach is likely to run into congressional challenges. Whatever the source, the initial round of farmer aid could potentially total up to $15 billion, according to Reuters news service. “The funds would go to soybean farmers affected by the China trade spat, as well as other types of commodity farmers, though the exact details were not yet determined,” a Reuters source said.  

Several sources inside agriculture have stated that current aid proposal amounts will not be nearly enough to cover market losses from Trump’s Tariff Wars 2.0. According to American Soybean Association president Caleb Ragland, proposed ideas for $10 billion to $14 billion in aid are akin to putting a Band-Aid on an open wound. “We are bleeding economically,” Ragland told Yahoo! Finance, saying eventual relief will come “by not having tariffs that are in place.”

No announcement from the USDA regarding aid was expected to come while the government remained shut down, according to various news reports. Farmers have also been affected by the government shutdown by delayed and-or canceled payments. ARC and PLC payments farmers had anticipated for the 2024 crop that were supposed to be distributed on October 1 had been postponed at press time.

Along with ARC-PLC payments, any aid distribution to farmers would require USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices and operations to be open, according to news sources