USDA announces new aid to sugar farmers
Published 7:00 am Wednesday, February 25, 2026
USDA will provide $150 million to U.S. sugar beet and sugarcane farmers in response to temporary market disruptions as well as increased production and processing costs, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins announced.
The department will work with sugar processors in the coming months to finalize agreements that will deliver assistance directly to farmer members, according to a news release. The one-time payments build upon the previously announced Farmer Bridge Assistance and Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers programs.
“President Trump is committed to standing by all of our great American farmers who were unjustly hurt by President Biden’s economic mismanagement that drove up the costs of inputs and dereliction of global trade that impacted commodity markets,” Rollins said in the release. USDA’s announcement of assistance “serves as a bridge to improvements President Trump and Republicans in Congress have made to the U.S. sugar program including the first meaningful increase to sugar loan rates in 40 years.”
Sugar loan rates were raised in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, providing added support to producers.
USDA also said it will provide $89.1 million in weather-related disaster assistance to sugar beet producers who suffered losses due to excessive heat in 2024. This funding, provided in the 2025 American Relief Act, will be administered through eligible beet sugar cooperatives.
Southern Idaho and parts of Oregon and Washington comprise a major sugar beet production region. Boise-based cooperative Amalgamated Sugar operates three plants in Idaho.
Industry response
Recent economic aid announced by the Trump administration “is appreciated, but there are still growers facing dire straits,” American Sugar Alliance director of economics and policy Rob Johansson told Capital Press. “We are working with Congress and the administration to tackle the challenges and provide growers with a long-term, sustainable path forward.”
Sugar prices have fallen by more than one-third in the past two years, while input and other production costs in fields and factories have risen sharply, he said.
“The U.S. is awash in a flood of highly subsidized foreign sugar, which is coming in above and beyond the quotas established by our trade agreements,” Johansson said. A substantial amount of out-of-quota sugar imports entered the U.S. last year, “with more coming this year.”
Demand is down slightly over the past four seasons, and “the increase in highly subsidized foreign sugar plus flat demand has led to an oversupply of sugar in the U.S., putting further downward pressure on the prices received by American farmers,” he said.
USDA’s recently announced assistance to sugar producers will be a “critical aid infusion for our farmers who are experiencing tight — and in many cases, negative — margins, threatening the economic viability of multi-generational family farms and the sustainability of the entire domestic sugar industry,” according to a statement from the alliance.
