After the Trump administration announced a $12 billion aid package to offset the impact of new tariffs, Black farmers at the National Black Growers Council conference in New Orleans expressed relief but pressed for faster payments amid squeezed profits and longstanding challenges, according to NPR.
The National Black Growers Council held its annual conference in New Orleans in mid-December 2025, shortly after the Trump administration unveiled a $12 billion federal relief package aimed at helping farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs, NPR reports.
According to NPR's reporting, the package includes direct payments for major row crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton. While specific program names and disbursement schedules have not been finalized publicly, attendees at the conference said the aid will be crucial in helping them secure operating loans and cover expenses heading into the next planting season.
James Davis, a third-generation farmer from northeast Louisiana, told NPR he had some of his best yields yet — roughly 1,300 pounds of cotton per acre, 50 bushels of soybeans per acre and 155 bushels of corn per acre on about 2,500 acres in total — but still struggled because retaliatory tariffs cut into export markets and prices. "To have that kind of yield and still not be able to pay all your bills, that tells you something is broken," he said, adding that federal aid could be key to lining up financing for the 2026 crop year.
PJ Haynie, the council's chairman and a fifth-generation farmer, pressed for the money to be delivered quickly, telling NPR it needed to arrive in time to cover end-of-year obligations and early-season costs. "This needs to show up like Santa Claus underneath the Christmas tree," he said, underscoring the urgency many producers feel as they juggle input costs, equipment payments and land rents.
Other Black producers, including farmers identified by NPR as Finis Stribling III and John Lee II, also voiced concern that even a multibillion-dollar package might not be enough to close the gap created by depressed prices and higher costs for fuel, fertilizer and equipment. Stribling described the $12 billion plan as "a drop in the bucket" compared with the scale of farm losses tied to the trade fight.
Speakers at the conference also placed the new tariff-related stress in a longer history of discrimination and barriers that have reduced Black landownership over generations. Citing USDA data, NPR noted that Black farmers today operate only a small fraction of the farmland they held a century ago — on the order of a couple of million acres nationwide — after decades of dispossession and unequal access to federal programs.
Economist Joseph Glauber, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told NPR that ongoing trade tensions and uncertainty over U.S.–China relations, along with competition from major exporters such as Brazil in the global soybean market, have deepened the pressure on U.S. farmers. For Black producers who often farm smaller acreages and have less cushion to absorb losses, conference attendees said, getting relief out the door quickly could determine whether they stay in business.
