The president of Minnesota Farmers Union says while the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program is welcome, ag producers don’t want to rely on ad hoc payments from the government. Gary Wertish says farmers want their money from trade, not aid, and that the farmer mediation program helps producers with just that. By August or September, he says they already had more people filing for mediation in 2025 than all of 2023 and ’24 combined, helping producers dealing with difficult financial situations. 

Wertish calls the $12 billion dollars being distributed primarily to row crop farmers a band-aid in the midst of a financial crisis in agriculture.