The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made a long-awaited announcement on how $1.625 billion will be delivered to eligible specialty crop producers in response to elevated input costs and market disruptions resulting from foreign competitors engaging in unfair trade practices that impeded specialty crop exports. The program is called Assistance for Specialty Crops Farmers (ASCF).

Specialty crop payments are intended to provide financial support to allow producers to pay for production and marketing inputs in the face of significant market disruptions during the 2025 growing season.

Specialty crop acres of eligible crops reported to FSA as an initial, double crop, repeat crop, or subsequent crop by April 24, 2026, will be used to determine ASCF program payments. Acreage that is reported as a cover crop, prevented planted, or with an intended use of grazing, left standing, green manure, silage, forage, volunteer, or experimental will not be used to determine ASCF program payments.

For a list of eligible specialty crops visit fsa.usda.gov/ascf. Specialty crops grown in a controlled environment are not eligible, except for mushrooms.

FSA used national average revenue per crop as a metric for developing the ASCF program payment categories and payment rates listed below. For a full list of eligible crops under each category, visit fsa.usda.gov/ascf.

• Tier 1 - $650 per acre
  Includes eligible specialty crops with an average annual revenue of more than $10,000 per acre.
• Tier 2 - $225 per acre
  Includes eligible specialty crops with an average annual revenue of more than $2,300 per acre and up to $10,000 per acre.
• Tier 3 - $65 per acre
  Includes eligible specialty crops with an average annual revenue of up to $2,300 per acre.

• Beans and Peas - $25 per acre
  Includes all types of beans and peas that were not eligible for the FBA program.

   

For more information on how revenue per acre was calculated, visit fsa.usda.gov/ascf.

The ASCF payment limitation is $250,000.

Source: USDA May 29, 2026 news release