Our good friend Dr. John Newton, who serves as the Vice President of Public Policy and Economic Analysis at the American Farm Bureau Federation, where he leads the organization’s government relations, advocacy, and economics teams and serves as Chief Economist, passed along some information in a recent post that I thought was worth sharing.
Following several years of high input costs, declining crop prices, and stagnant congressional investments in critical farm programs, including risk management tools, trade promotion programs, marketing assistance loans, and disaster programs, Congress advanced a historic investment in farm bill programs as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). However, not every program in the farm bill was addressed in the OBBBA, e.g., the Conservation Reserve Program, and efforts continue to pass a bipartisan farm bill reauthorization for those programs. To facilitate this effort, CBO recently provided an early release of its baseline projections for USDA’s mandatory farm programs and SNAP.
According to CBO’s February 2026 baseline, total outlays for SNAP and USDA mandatory farm programs such as Price Loss Coverage, Agriculture Risk Coverage, federal crop insurance, and voluntary conservation programs are projected at $1.4 trillion from fiscal year 2027 to 2036, in line with the January 2025 baseline projections.
SNAP – At slightly more than 70% of total projected spending for farm bill programs, the largest projected outlay for USDA farm and nutrition programs is SNAP at $985 billion over 10 years. Largely due to lower participation rates, which dropped from 39 million beneficiaries in 2026 to 34 million in 2035, projected SNAP outlays have declined by -$139 billion, or -12%, from the January 2025 baseline. While SNAP projected outlays have declined, the average benefit per recipient is projected to rise from $187 per person per month in 2026 to just under $230 per person per month in 2036, an increase of +23%.
Federal Crop Insurance – When it comes to farm programs, projected outlays for federal crop insurance, including delivery expenses and the premium cost share, are nearly $156 billion over 10 years, representing 11% of total outlays, and up +17%, or +$23 billion, from the January 2025 baseline. The increase in projected outlays for crop insurance is due to improvements made in the OBBBA, including enhanced premium support for beginning farmers, higher premium support across coverage levels, expanded eligibility for the Supplemental Coverage Option and the creation of a new pilot insurance product for contract poultry growers to make crop insurance more affordable and more accessible for farmers.
Commodity Support Programs – Following crop insurance, projected outlays for USDA commodity support programs such as PLC, ARC, Dairy Margin Coverage, marketing assistance loans and disaster programs total nearly $134 billion over 10 years, up significantly from CBO’s January 2025 baseline. This increase in projected outlays was expected, as Congress made a significant investment in important risk management programs by raising reference prices, expanding coverage under ARC, and allowing the creation of up to 30 million new base acres for eligible farmers, among other improvements. Of the $134 billion in commodity support program payments, approximately $115 billion in projected outlays are for ARC, PLC, and marketing loan programs. Of that total, projected outlays are the highest for corn at more than $39 billion over 10 years, followed by wheat at more than $20 billion, and cotton at just under $10 billion. Across the major program crops, over 60% of projected outlays, or nearly $73 billion, will flow to eligible corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum acres, while approximately one-third, or $39.
USDA Voluntary Conservation Programs – Following critical risk management tools such as crop insurance and commodity programs, projected outlays for USDA voluntary conservation programs, including the Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, are $73 billion, largely unchanged from the January 2025 CBO baseline. OBBBA made changes to working lands USDA conservation programs to permanently increase access and the availability of conservation financial and technical resources to address local resource needs such as water quality, soil health, wildlife habitat management and regenerative agriculture, among others.
When the “OBBBA” passed, leaders in Congress knew the additional investment in farm bill programs would not reach the farm quickly. Enhancements made and effective for the 2025 crop year will not be delivered to farmers until fiscal year 2027, when commodity program support is expected to top +$15 billion. In the interim, farmers are still operating under an outdated safety net for crops grown in prior years when the farm economy turned sour, e.g., 2023 and 2024. As evidence, despite historically low crop prices and tight margins approaching the fourth or fifth consecutive year for some crops, commodity program support delivered for 2024 crops was just over +$2 billion, highlighting the need for economic assistance beyond those authorized under the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops or the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, especially given the uncertain farm economic outlook for 2026. You can read the entire report HERE.
