Ag Policy Blog

USDA's Farm Service Agency has published a notice in the Federal Register detailing a change to the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) that opens some additional acres under "double cropping" now eligible for the program.

The notice specifically deals with situations in which a producer planted, or was prevented from planting, both an initial crop and a subsequent crop on the same acreage for the 2024 crop year. If the second crop that was either planted, or prevented from being planted was also an eligible commodity – and was reported to FSA by Aug. 15, 2025, on FSA-578 (Report of Acreage) then the subsequent crop is now eligible for ECAP regardless of whether it meets the definition of double cropping under USDA's initial notice about the program.

"FSA is making this change to align the administration of ECAP with the broad intent of the authorizing legislation to address the gap between the cost of production and market prices for all eligible commodities that were planted or prevented from being planted, due to feedback from industry leaders, commodity groups, and producers who were directly impacted."

In making the announcement, FSA is extending the deadline to apply for enrollment in ECAP to account for additional acres and commodities due to the change. Producers who may have additional acres now have until Sept. 30 to submit the FSA-63 ECAP application for those additional acres.

The notice does not extend the original Aug. 15 decline to apply for ECAP under the initial notice or submit late-filed acreage reports.

Congress provided USDA $10 billion for ECAP to pay for financial losses to commodity producers for the 2024 crop year.

Breaking down the payments, as of Monday, USDA has paid out more than $7.9 billion to 558,780 applications for aid. The top states for payments are: Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Kansas, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota. Those eight states account for just under 60% of total payment under the program.

Corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton are the top commodities under the program, accounting for $7 billion of the $7.9 in total payments.

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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