SALEM, Ohio — The ongoing government shutdown is an inconvenience for farmers missing payments from government organizations like the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency or who are unable to access agricultural data.
But if the impasse over federal spending drags on for weeks or months — as expected — it could grow much more dire for the nation’s agriculture community.
Many farmers were on the cusp of harvesting their crops when agencies like the USDA largely closed their doors on Oct. 1 after Congress failed to agree on a funding plan. As a result, many growers are missing loan and grant payments when they are most in need of cash.
“Any payment that is coming from the Farm Service Agency, whether that’s a typical commodities support payment or any type of disaster aid, those are being held up,” said Robert Moore, an attorney and research specialist for the Ohio State University’s agricultural extension.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced on the social media platform X on Oct. 22 that the Farm Service Agency would resume some of its core functions, including loan processing.
However, a tranche of federal money intended to help soybean farmers harmed by an ongoing trade war is on hold until the government reopens.
The shutdown comes at a time when agricultural producers are already struggling with high costs and low commodity prices. But the situation could get worse.
Randy Smith, a corn and soybean farmer from Butler County, Pennsylvania, has a commodity loan from the Farm Service Agency, which is supposed to go to the buyer of his crops, who then pays him for his grain and then holds on to it until the prices rise.
But Smith said the buyer won’t pay until the loan payments come through from the FSA, even as his crops sit in their storage bins.
“We’re not going to go out of business,” Smith stressed. “But every dollar helps.”
The Pennsylvania farmer was also supposed to split the bill for a new grain dryer with the National Resources Conservation Service — which is also part of the USDA — through a cost-sharing program.
“It’s days away from being done,” Smith said of the dryer, worrying that he won’t see the agency’s share for some time.
On their own, lack of payments and missing data are inconvenient, but “I think it’s going to have a compounding effect over time,” Moore said.
The shutdown is worse for small farmers, said Dana DiPrima, founder of For Farmers Movement, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that provides grants to farmers in several Midwest and East Coast states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“Small farmers don’t have a cushion,” she said. “When something happens during harvest season, it can mean they can’t pay workers, and harvest is left in the field.”
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding is set to run out in November, which could be a major impediment to Ohio farmer Lauren Gerig, who raises hogs near New Madison on the western side of the state.
She sells her meat at farmers’ markets where customers sometimes pay with SNAP benefits. A local nonprofit matches any money spent by SNAP recipients at one of those markets, guaranteeing her a haul of several hundred dollars every time she participates.
“That’s where we probably have our biggest solid group of customers,” she said.
Data from the mostly shuttered USDA also helps markets set prices for commodities like corn and soybeans. Without that data, buyers will almost certainly be conservative in the prices they offer growers to avoid the risk of overpaying, Moore said.
“If they don’t have the most up-to-date reports on what current yields are doing, and what the progress of the crops are, then they don’t have data that’s as good as they normally have,” Moore said. “Without that data, I think they could err on making the price a little on the low side rather than the high side.”
