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CIPA Important Update*

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins today announced the launch of the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) to disburse the $10 billion in economic assistance to eligible commodities for the 2024 crop year, as outlined in the American Relief Act, passed in December of 2024. 

In an excellent op-ed published this morning, Secretary Rollins wrote, “So, on this National Agriculture Day 2025, I have a message direct from President Donald J. Trump: help is here. To meet the crisis in American agriculture, we are disbursing the funds — which will aggregate to more than ten billion dollars — from the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program. Details are being released Tuesday, and applications are going in the mail this week, before the deadline mandated by Congress. Our farmers will get the help they’re owed sooner, not later.”  She added, “The Emergency Commodity Assistance Program is a beginning, not an end, of our aid to farmers in crisis. USDA will soon unveil a new disaster program, totaling nearly $21 billion, to help our farm and ranch families recover from natural disasters in 2023 and 2024.”

A full notice in the Federal Register will be published tomorrow, March 19, and includes “eligibility (commodities, acres, producers, and losses), payment calculations, payment limitations, and how to apply (pre-filled application and any required adjustments) for ECAP”.  

USDA’s Farm Service Agency has also published the following materials and resources: 

1) ECAP Fact Sheet

2) ECAP Frequently Asked Questions Document, and

3) An Online Calculator on FSA’s website.

Below, please find some initial guidance including rates, payment calculation information, and application guidance from the unpublished Federal Register notice which may be helpful.

As always, please reach out with any questions – we are here to help.

Happy National Agriculture Day!

The CSA Crew

Relevant Payment information

• FSA will multiply the payment rate for an eligible commodity by the producer’s eligible acres of that eligible commodity. 
• FSA will calculate payments based on determined acreage, or on reported acres if determined acres are not present. Planted acreage includes any land devoted to planted acres for accepted skiprow planting patterns, as determined by the Secretary.
• In situations where a producer planted, or was prevented from planting, both an initial crop and a subsequent crop on the same acreage for the 2024 crop year, the initial crop will be eligible for ECAP if it was an eligible commodity. 
• If the subsequent crop that was planted or prevented from being planted was also an eligible commodity, it will also be eligible for ECAP if it was in an approved double cropping combination.
• FSA will issue eligible ECAP payments as applications are approved. ECAP payments will be prorated by 85 percent to ensure that payments do not exceed the available funding. 
• FSA may issue an additional payment if additional funding remains available after initial prorated ECAP payments are issued to eligible producers based upon the terms of this NOFA and applications received by the closing date [August 15, 2025].

Payment Rate Calculations

• The American Relief Act, 2025, specifies how to calculate the expected gross return per acre and expected cost of production per acre that were used to determine the payment rates for wheat, corn, sorghum, barley, oats, cotton, rice, and soybeans.
• For commodities for which the Secretary determines there is insufficient data from the USDA sources noted above, the American Relief Act, 2025, provides that the Secretary will determine a comparable estimate of gross returns and a comparable total estimated cost of production. 
• Eligible commodities that do not have a price projection available in WASDE, nor a cost-of-production forecast in the “national average cost-of-production forecasts for major U.S. field crops,” include pulse crops (large chickpeas, small chickpeas, dry peas, lentils) and certain oilseeds (canola, crambe, flax, mustard, rapeseed, safflower, sesame, sunflower). 
• Peanuts do not have a price forecast published in the WASDE. For commodities not available in the WASDE, price projections for the 2024-2025 marketing year were taken from the ARC/PLC 2024 Market Year Average Prices web posting as of January 2025. 
• This is the only data set published by USDA that provides crop year price forecasts for those crops that are not included in the WASDE, and these prices are determined using similar methods as WASDE forecasts.

Application Information

• FSA will generate pre-filled ECAP applications for producers based on their acreage of eligible commodities on FSA-578. Beginning in late-March 2025, FSA will mail those pre-filled applications to producers who had reported their 2024 crop year acreage of eligible commodities by March 10, 2025.
• Applicants must submit the FSA-63 ECAP, Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) Application, electronically or to their local FSA county office by August 15, 2025.
• Applicants will submit one application that includes all eligible acreage in all counties nationwide.
• To apply for ECAP, an applicant must have also reported their planted and prevented planted acreage of eligible commodities to FSA on FSA-578 and filed a notice of loss for acres that were prevented from being planted on CCC-576, if applicable. FSA will not accept applications on which producers have manually entered acreage data except in situations where adjustment of eligible acres is required as explained in the Eligible Acreage section of this document.
• Producers who had not reported planted and prevented planted acreage on FSA578 and filed a notice of loss for prevented planted acreage using CCC-576 by March 10, 2025, must submit those forms as described in the Eligible Acreage section of this document by August 15, 2025.
• Once submitted, FSA will generate a pre-filled ECAP application for the producer to complete and sign.
• Applicants must also submit the following eligibility forms to FSA by August 17, 2026, if not already on file with FSA for the 2024 program year
  • AD-2047, Customer Data Worksheet, for new applicants and applicants who need to update their information; 
  • CCC-901, Member Information for Legal Entities, if applicable; 
  • CCC-902E, Farm Operating Plan for an Entity; if applicable; 
  • CCC-902I, Farm Operating Plan for an Individual, if applicable; 
  • CCC-943, 75% of Average Gross Income from Farming, Ranching, or Forestry Certification, for producers and members of legal entities who are requesting an increase to the payment limitation; 
  • AD-1026 Highly Erodible Land Conservation (HELC) and Wetland Conservation (WC) Certification, for the producer and affiliated persons, as specified in 7 CFR 12.8; and 
  • SF-3881, ACH Vendor/Miscellaneous Payment Enrollment Form.

All currently available resources may be accessed here:

• USDA’s ECAP Fact Sheet
• USDA’s ECAP FAQ Document
• USDA’s Online Calculator Tool
• USDA ECAP Home Page
• USDA’s Press Release
• Secretary Rollins Op-Ed
• Federal Register Notice 

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