The following is from the National Cotton Council. The final numbers won’t be out until the week of the 22nd of December when the final acreage report is out. More information will be available at that time.

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Yesterday, during a roundtable with farmers, including cotton growers, at the White House, President Trump announced an economic assistance package for producers for the 2025 crop. The payment is meant as a financial bridge for growers until the increased benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act take effect in the fall of 2026.

I’ve included an outline of the provisions below. Specific commodity per-acre payment rates are expected to be announced during the week of December 22. The USDA press release is included here.

• $11 of $12 billion will be for row crops.

• It will be an ECAP-style program based on 2025 planted acres.

• Payment rates will be announced later this month.

• Producers will have until December 19 to make sure their acreage is on file and accurate. We believe USDA will announce exact payment rates after they’ve verified acreage numbers. 

• USDA will issue prefilled applications like they did with ECAP.

• USDA expects payments to be released by February 28, 2026.

• Program will not pay anything on prevent plant. If a second crop is planted following the prevent plant, that crop would qualify. Fallow land will not get a payment.
  
• Payment limits are different than ECAP. The payment limits will follow the one big, beautiful bill, so there’ll be a $155,000 per person or legal entity, and the AGI limits will be $900,000. In ECAP, producers could double their limit if 75% of their AGI was from farming. Unfortunately, this will not apply for this program.