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Trade woes, low prices spur call for more aid

The CEO of the American Soybean Association says while the USDA’s latest ad-hoc assistance for farmers is appreciated, farmers could use more help.

Stephen Censky says Congress can step in.

“They’re going to have to look for the appropriate vehicle in Congress if they want to provide additional assistance and that’s not going to happen before the end of this year. It’s likely a Q1 of 2026 issue,” says Censky. “I do think there are leaders in Congress that are going to work very hard to provide additional assistance.”

Some U.S. ag committee leaders, including Congressman G.T. Thompson and Senator John Boozman, along with Senate Ag Appropriations Chairman John Hoeven, have said they are prepared to work on additional assistance, if needed, and engage with the administration as they roll out the new program.

Censky says there’s a cost-price squeeze happening across agriculture right now; a combination of a tough farm economy and retaliation from trade tariffs.

“Normally, we sell around 24 to 28 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans to China (annually) and in the last marketing year, we only sold six million metric tons. That’s a dramatic decrease and we saw that reflected in the prices farmers recieved.”

Censky says China has started to buy more U.S. soybeans since the end of October, but there’s still a long way to go for China to meet their commitment of buying 12 million metric tons of ag products in the near-term.