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Corn & Soy

USDA adds blue and red corn to $11 billion bridge aid program; growers have until Sept. 28 to apply

A correcting amendment to the Farmer Bridge Assistance rule admits two corn types left off February's definition, sends pre-filled applications to growers who reported 2025 acres of them and reopens the window that closed April 17.

By Commodity Hill Staff7 min read

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) on Aug. 27 added blue and red corn to the crops eligible for Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA), the $11 billion one-time aid program for 2025 row crops, and gave producers of those two corn types until Sept. 28 to apply[1]. The program’s general deadline passed more than four months ago, on April 17[1].

The fix is one line of regulatory text. The consequence for the growers it reaches is a per-acre payment they had no way to claim in the spring.

The details: what the correction changes

When CCC published the FBA rule on Feb. 23, it defined corn as “only white, yellow, amylose, popcorn (excluding strawberry popcorn), waxy, and high amylase corn”[2]. The correcting amendment, signed by CCC Executive Vice President William Beam, inserts “blue, red,” after the word “only” in 7 CFR 1414.3[1]. It took effect on publication[1].

CCC calls the original wording an oversight. The definition “inadvertently omitted blue and red corn, which are also eligible for the FBA Program,” the notice says[1]. Because the two types were missing from the definition, they were also missing from the pre-filled applications the Farm Service Agency (FSA) prepared, and their producers “could not apply by the deadline”[1].

The correction sets out three steps:

  • CCC will generate a CCC-555, the FBA application, for each eligible producer who timely reported eligible 2025 crop year acres of blue or red corn[1].
  • The deadline to submit that CCC-555 for blue and red corn is Sept. 28, 2026, an extension made under the rule’s provision letting FSA push back the application date at its discretion[1, 2].
  • The eligibility paperwork deadline stays where it was: April 19, 2027[1].

Nothing else in the definition moves. Strawberry popcorn remains excluded[1, 2].

Who can apply for bridge payments on blue and red corn?

The correction’s eligibility language points back to the original rule. A producer must have filed an FSA-578 acreage report covering the crop by Dec. 19, 2025[2]. Acres reported as initial, double-crop or subsequent crops count; acres reported as a cover crop, or with an intended use of grazing, left standing, volunteer, green manure or experimental, do not[2]. Where FSA measured the field, determined acres replace reported acres[2].

Payment is acres times rate. FBA has one rate for corn, $44.36 per acre, and the amendment works by folding blue and red corn into that definition rather than creating a new commodity line[1, 2]. A grower with 40 reported acres of blue corn would therefore be looking at about $1,774 before any limitation, by the rule’s arithmetic[2].

The usual limits apply. A person or legal entity cannot receive more than $155,000 under the program, directly or indirectly, and anyone whose average adjusted gross income for the 2021-2023 tax years exceeds $900,000 is ineligible[2]. A producer who already drew FBA money this spring on yellow corn, soybeans or wheat counts the new blue or red corn payment against the same $155,000 cap[2]. Producers must also be actively engaged in farming and in compliance with conservation rules[2].

The paperwork due by April 19, 2027, if not already on file for 2025, covers the CCC-901 member information form for entities, the CCC-902 farm operating plan, the CCC-941 income certification and the AD-1026 highly erodible land and wetland certification[1, 2].

How the $44.36 corn rate was set

The rule built every crop’s rate from one formula. CCC took the 2025 national harvested yield, multiplied it by the price forecast in the Dec. 9, 2025, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE), and subtracted the Economic Research Service’s 2025 cost-of-production forecast[2]. For corn that meant 186 bushels times $4.00, or $744 an acre in gross return, against $889.88 in costs, a modeled loss of $145.88[2]. CCC then paid 30.41% of each crop’s modeled loss, a factor chosen so total payments would not exceed $11 billion[2].

That produced per-acre rates ranging from $8.05 an acre for flax to $132.89 for rice and $117.35 for cotton[2]. Soybeans drew $30.88, wheat $39.35 and sorghum $48.11[2]. Crambe and rapeseed got nothing because the model showed no loss for them[2].

The rule estimated the total cost at $10.998 billion, just under the $11 billion ceiling, and noted that the final figure depends on how many applications are submitted and approved[2]. The correction does not say what blue and red corn acres add[1].

In the field: a small group of growers, a familiar rate

For most corn operations nothing changes. Yellow and white corn acres were on the pre-filled forms from the start, and CCC said in February it intended to pay in early 2026[2]. KCUR and Harvest Public Media reported in January that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told qualifying farmers to expect payments “in their bank accounts by February 28”[4].

The growers this reaches are those who planted blue or red corn in 2025 and reported it to their county office on time. They have about a month to return a form CCC is preparing for them[1]. Producers who reported those acres but do not see a CCC-555 should contact their county office; the original rule directs anyone who believes FSA’s records misstate their interest in a crop to do the same[2].

The rate itself drew mixed reviews when USDA released it last winter. The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) noted that $44.36 an acre compared with $42.91 per acre for corn under the earlier Emergency Commodity Assistance Program[3]. NCGA President Jed Bower called the aid “helpful and welcomed” and pointed to “multiple consecutive years of low corn prices and high input costs”[3].

University of Illinois economist Nicholas Paulson told KCUR the payment “will be helpful, but it won’t completely cover the losses that they’re experiencing in the 2025 crop year,” and that because rates rest on national averages, “There will be farms where the bridge payment is insufficient to cover it”[4]. Texas A&M AgriLife economist DeDe Jones said the aid would bring relief to farmers and lenders but is “nowhere near enough to cover all their losses”[4]. The American Farm Bureau Federation projected Texas would receive the most of any state, about $1.1 billion, followed by Iowa, Kansas and Illinois, with corn, soybeans and wheat taking more than three-quarters of the dollars, according to the same report[4].

On the Hill: aid until the safety net pays

FBA did not come from Congress. CCC used its own borrowing authority under section 5(b) of the CCC Charter Act, 15 U.S.C. 714c(b), and issued the rule without notice and comment under the benefits exemption in the Administrative Procedure Act[2]. It also invoked good cause to skip the Congressional Review Act’s usual 60-day delay[2].

USDA framed the money as a bridge. The rule says it is intended in part to carry producers until higher reference prices enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21) reach them after Oct. 1, 2026, when payments on 2025 crops under Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage begin[2]. That law raised the corn reference price from $3.70 to $4.10 a bushel and soybeans from $8.40 to $10.00 for the 2025-2030 crops[2]. The rule cites “market-distorting actions of foreign governments,” tariffs and delayed purchases as reasons for the 2025 price damage[2]. Commodity Hill covered the new base acre allocation from the same law in July, along with the separate specialty crop program that covers beans and peas left out of FBA.

Lawmakers divided when the package was announced in December. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said the assistance “sends a strong message to China,” and Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) called it “important news for North Dakota farm families who are struggling with record high input costs,” the Devils Lake Journal reported[5]. Rollins said “It is imperative we do what it takes to help our farmers”[5].

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said “ultimately farmers want trade — not aid,” and North Dakota Democratic-NPL Chair Adam Goldwyn said “Our farmers want trade, not aid”[5]. Commodity groups that welcomed the aid also pressed on markets: Bower said “we urgently need the administration and Congress to develop markets in the United States and abroad”[3]. The American Soybean Association said the program “falls short,” KCUR reported[4].

None of that debate touches the correction, which no lawmaker had addressed in the sources cited. It is an administrative fix to an executive program, made under authority the February rule reserved to FSA[1, 2].

What to watch

  • Sept. 28, 2026: deadline for blue and red corn producers to return the CCC-555[1].
  • After Oct. 1, 2026: ARC and PLC payments on 2025 crops, the payments FBA was meant to bridge to, can begin[2].
  • April 19, 2027: deadline for all FBA eligibility forms not already on file[1, 2].
  • Open question: how many acres of blue and red corn were reported for 2025, and whether paying them pushes the program past its $10.998 billion cost estimate[1, 2].