In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would provide $12 billion in economic aid for farmers, through the Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program, largely aimed at addressing market disruptions from shifting trade policy. Nearly all of the aid—$11 billion—was reserved for commodity farmers, or those growing crops like corn and soybeans.

The remaining $1 billion was designated for other crops, including sugar and specialty crops, through the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) program. Farmers were notified on Feb. 13 that they had until March 13 to submit their 2025 acreage reports in order to apply for the aid. Now that the deadline has passed, farmers who submitted acreage reports are expected to receive an application for the aid.

Meanwhile, farmers are still waiting for information about how the aid will be distributed. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden said recently that specialty-crop-specific payments rates will be available by early April.

Without knowing the potential benefits of the assistance, many specialty-crop farmers decided not to submit an acreage report, disqualifying them from the aid.

“I think by and large, specialty-crop farmers that operate on smaller scales and have very diversified operations are just kind of ignoring this because it just feels so abstract,” said Lindsey Shapiro, a farmer and federal policy organizer at Pasa Sustainable Agriculture.

While acreage reports are common practice for commodity farms, it’s a new process for many specialty crop farmers, said Duncan Orlander, policy analyst at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC).

The acreage report asks farmers to list planting dates, crops planted, number of acres used, and where the crop was sold. Most small, diversified specialty-crop operations grow a range of crops, on a fraction of an acre of land, and sell to a variety of sources. Under those conditions, a detailed crop report can be difficult to put together.

Minnesota-based farmer Sara George grows a range of crops, including rhubarb, asparagus, raspberries, kale, apples, blueberries, and more. She’s picking raspberries nearly every day, she said, making it hard to report a harvest date. From there, she sells those raspberries online, to schools, wholesale, or at a farmers’ market. Tracking where all the crops were sold and for what price would be another difficult task, she said.

“If you have kale, you have to do acreage reporting of your kale,” George said. “I don’t plant an acre of kale, I plant two rows of kale.”

The March deadline came during planting season for many specialty crop growers, meaning they had less time to navigate this new process, Orlander said.

And without knowing how the payments will be administered, George said there isn’t a clear precedent of how specialty-crop farmers will benefit based on acreage.