New federal budget includes relief for Arkansas farmers

STUTTGART, Ark. – After years of uncertainty and delays on Capitol Hill, Arkansas farmers are finally seeing some of the relief they’ve long called for — not through a new Farm Bill, but from provisions tucked inside a sweeping federal budget package known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

The bill, signed into law earlier this summer, includes key updates to federal agriculture policy — including increases to reference prices, expanded crop insurance support, and new disaster relief funding — provisions farmers say couldn’t come soon enough.

Jay Coker, a rice grower in Stuttgart, says the changes address years of financial pressure that have made it harder to plant, harvest, and survive.

“Our costs have skyrocketed during the last 10 to 15 years,” Coker said. “So that will help bring our reference prices up to a level that is more reflective of what we’re seeing right now.”

Reference prices — set federal rates that trigger support payments when market prices drop — are one of the most relied-on tools in the farm safety net. For Arkansas rice producers, who say they’ve been using outdated prices from 2012, the new adjustment is expected to make a meaningful difference in margins.

“We hope that this gives us some stability and some consistency where we can make better decisions,” Coker said. “That affects everything — labor, equipment, fertilizer — it all depends on what we can afford.”

The legislation also includes new funding for disaster assistance — a particularly welcome change for Arkansas growers hit by major weather events over the last year, including hailstorms and extreme rains that wiped out entire fields.

“They will help fit some of the occurrences that have happened in Arkansas over the past year,” Coker said. “We’re thankful there’s some type of program that can help those producers recoup those losses.”

While the relief has been applauded in many farming circles, some critics say the bill favors larger agribusiness operations and doesn’t go far enough to protect small or independent farms. Others point out that while the provisions help in the short term, they’re no substitute for a full, standalone Farm Bill, which remains stalled in Congress after the previous one, passed in 2018, expired in 2023, and was given an extension for 2024

For now, Arkansas producers say they’re relieved to get something, even if it isn’t everything.