USDA Announces $8 Billion in Harvest Fuel Relief and $573 Million for Fertilizer Plants Weeks Before the Midterms

USDA announced $8 billion in one-time Harvest Fuel Relief payments to farmers on October 19 and about $573 million for eight fertilizer plants on October 22, both drawn on the Commodity Credit Corporation. Neither program comes from a new appropriation. Both use USDA’s standing authority to borrow from the Treasury through the CCC, the same route the department took for the $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance payments earlier this year.

Both announcements came in the last weeks before the November 3 midterms, 15 and 12 days out. President Trump first described the fuel program in a campaign speech in Wichita, Kansas, for Senator Roger Marshall, Reuters reported, and USDA released the details late that day with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. Payment rates come out in November, so no money reaches farmers before the election.

Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

What the fuel money pays for

USDA’s release describes the program as relief “during temporary market disruptions and increased input costs.” It doesn’t name the cause. Diesel is the obvious one. The Energy Information Administration put the national on-highway diesel average at $6.352 a gallon on October 26, about $2.63 above a year earlier. Fuel exports through the Strait of Hormuz have been squeezed by the conflict with Iran, and the administration has already expanded the use of untaxed dyed diesel and licensed a Russian diesel deal that drew objections from senators.

The Farm Service Agency will run the program. Payments cover part of modeled 2026 crop-year losses, based on FSA planted acres, Economic Research Service cost-of-production estimates and USDA’s own yield and price forecasts. Rates for the major Title I crops, such as corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton, come in November. The method for other crops comes later, and USDA has asked specialty crop growers and fishermen to email fuel-cost data so it can set their rates. Crop insurance isn’t required. No application dates or payment caps have been published.

The program sits on top of other federal farm money. USDA says about $14 billion in Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage payments went out in early October under the 2025 reconciliation law, about $8 billion more than farmers would have received without that law.

The CCC’s credit line

The CCC can borrow up to $30 billion from the Treasury. Congress resets that line by appropriating money to cover the corporation’s net realized losses, usually at the start of the fiscal year. Ad hoc payments like these draw on it without a separate vote.

That room is not unlimited. A University of Illinois farmdoc analysis on October 22 estimated that this year’s ARC and PLC payments and marketing loans could use more than $20 billion, about two-thirds of the line, and that conservation spending could push the total to at least $26.5 billion. By that count, the full $8 billion would run past the cap unless Congress restores the CCC’s borrowing room. The farm bill extension expired on September 30, and that bill is one of the items due in the lame duck, covered in our December 11 deadline post.

Eight fertilizer plants

The October 22 awards come from FIELDS, the Fertilizer Investment and Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply program that USDA Rural Development opened in July with $500 million and an August 17 application deadline. The eight selections add up to about $573 million in proposed USDA funding against more than $1.34 billion in total project costs. USDA says it topped up the program with money recovered from failed projects under the previous administration’s Fertilizer Production Expansion Program.

The largest awards go to Intrepid Potash near Carlsbad, New Mexico, about $139 million for sulfate of potash; Agriculture Project Holdco in Kansas and Indiana, about $116.9 million for ammonium nitrate made from dairy manure; PCI Nitrogen in Texas and Oregon, about $100 million; and TalusAg, about $99.8 million for 20 small ammonia units at 11 sites in seven states. AdvanSix in Hopewell, Virginia, SUL4R-PLUS in Illinois, Peace Valley in Florida and True Organic Products make up the rest.

USDA says the projects add about 1.08 million tons of annual capacity. Its own analysis projects nitrogen prices 4.4 percent lower and potash prices 5.3 percent lower once the plants run. The department notes that four companies control about 77 percent of North American nitrogen capacity and two produce about 90 percent of North American potash.

These are selections, not finished plants. The awards still go through agreements, and output follows construction.

The record so far

Both programs rest on the 1948 CCC Charter Act. Administrations of both parties have used the CCC for ad hoc aid, and the previous administration funded its fertilizer grants from it too. The open questions are about money and timing. Payment rates are due in November. The CCC’s balance has to carry through the fiscal year. The money that refills the line comes through appropriations, and government funding runs out on December 11.