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: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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