USDA Sets $225-Per-Acre Payment Rate for Potato Growers Under New Specialty Crop Aid Program

The USDA has locked in payment rates and enrollment timing for the Assistance for Specialty Crops Farmers (ASCF) program, a $1.625 billion relief effort for specialty crop producers, the National Potato Council confirms. For potatoes specifically, the rate is set at $225 per acre, with a per-entity payment cap of $250,000. Payments will apply to acres of eligible specialty crops planted in 2025 that were reported to the Farm Service Agency (FSA) by the April 24, 2026 acreage-reporting deadline — meaning growers who missed that filing window are effectively locked out regardless of eligibility otherwise.

The USDA is also reinstating a standard Adjusted Gross Income limitation: any entity with AGI above $900,000 is ineligible. That represents a return to a more conventional eligibility screen rather than the broader access some earlier pandemic-era programs allowed.

ASCF is structured on a framework similar to the original Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP1), with the USDA relying on internal data to set eligibility and calculate payment rates from national averages, the National Potato Council notes. That reuse of an existing model suggests the agency prioritized speed of rollout over designing a bespoke mechanism for current conditions — a tradeoff that is administratively efficient but ties payment logic to historical averages rather than any newly assessed hardship specific to 2025-2026 growing conditions.

Growers with a Login.gov account can access and submit a pre-filled application starting June 1, 2026. Those without a Login.gov account, or who prefer applying in person, can request a pre-filled application at their local FSA office beginning June 8, 2026. The enrollment window closes August 7, 2026, giving producers roughly two months to complete the process either digitally or through a physical office visit.

When ASCF was first announced in February, the National Potato Council joined the Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA) in stating that additional support was still needed. The SCFBA argued Congress should provide not less than $5 billion in dedicated aid for the specialty crop sector, calling that support critical to the sustainability of American agriculture and the communities specialty crop producers serve. That $5 billion ask, made months before the final $1.625 billion program was locked in, frames the now-finalized rates as landing well short of what the alliance had been requesting — the final program funds roughly a third of that target.

At $225 per acre with a $250,000 cap, the program's real-world value to any individual potato operation will depend heavily on scale: an operation near the cap threshold would need roughly 1,111 planted acres to reach it, meaning smaller operations receive proportionally less benefit relative to the advocacy push for broader, larger-scale relief.