American Relief Act of 2025: Economic Assistance for NC Crop Producers

Mar 04, 2025

By Carly Haugh

On December 21, 2024, Congress passed the American Relief Act of 2025 (ARA) to address projected farm income losses in 2024. The legislation extends the 2018 Farm Bill through mid-March 2025, ensuring continuity in federal agricultural policy. It includes approximately $31 billion in ad hoc disaster aid for farmers, with $21 billion allocated for natural disaster relief to assist those affected by extreme weather events and $10 billion designated for direct assistance payments to crop producers. The Act’s economic assistance program aims to offset declines in farm revenue resulting from falling commodity prices and increasing production costs. These payments are expected to alleviate financial distress among producers and contribute to farm income stability as the sector navigates ongoing economic challenges.

In this issue of the NC State Economist, Yifei Zhang, Roderick Rejesus, Alejandro Plastina and Marc Rosenbohm explain how the economic assistance payments work and what the American Relief Act of 2025 will mean for North Carolina producers.

Read the NC State Economis

Source : ncsu.edu

Video: What Happens When Pigs Adapt to High Soybean Meal Diets? - Gustavo Lima

In this special rerun episode of The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, Gustavo Lima, PhD candidate in Animal Science at Iowa State University, discusses how grow-finish pigs respond to high soybean meal diets. He explains the initial drop in feed intake, changes in backfat, later adaptation, energy efficiency, amino acid utilization, and the rise in nitrogen excretion at higher inclusion levels. Listen now on all major platforms!

Click here to read the full research article: https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/...

“Once they got adapted to the diet, they can handle higher levels of inclusion of soybean meal.”

Meet the guest: Gustavo Lima / gustavo-lima-a9867127 is a PhD candidate in Animal Science at Iowa State University whose work focuses on swine nutrition, ingredient characterization, energy metabolism, caloric efficiency, and applied data analysis. With more than 15 years of experience in swine production across Latin America, Gustavo also brings expertise in environmental control, performance evaluation, barn ventilation, and grow-finish housing. Learn more from Gustavo Lima on The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.