Today, House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (MN-02) released the below statement regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rollout of the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP), authorized through the American Relief Act, 2025 at the end of the 118^th Congress.

“I am proud to have helped secure $10 billion for our farmers, who have been dealing with tough economic conditions, and I congratulate the Agriculture Department for meeting Congress’ deadline for rolling the program out. I hope that producers start to feel the benefit of the ECAP program soon. But to truly help meet the needs of farm country, we need to pass a bipartisan farm bill. Farmers need access to markets, reliable program funding, trade opportunities and the power of American research and innovation. Ad hoc assistance is appreciated but does not provide the long-term certainty and support of a bipartisan farm bill. We need to ensure a partisan reconciliation process does not cut the legs out from under the farm bill.”

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) will begin sending pre-filled applications to producers who submitted acreage reports to FSA for 2024 eligible ECAP commodities once the signup period opens on March 19, 2025. Producers do not have to wait to receive their pre-filled ECAP application from FSA to apply. They can visit fsa.usda.gov/ecap and apply using a login.gov account or contact their local FSA office to request an application once the signup period opens.