Federal crop safety-net payments largely offset harvest losses for nine major U.S. field crops in 2025 and brought their combined 2023-2025 returns to break-even, according to a university analysis released Oct. 23. The finding changes the picture of recent crop-sector losses, but it does not mean every farm covered its costs.
Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University and Henrique Monaco of the University of Minnesota estimated that the nine crops lost $28.1 billion at harvest in 2025 before safety-net assistance. After that assistance, $3.7 billion in losses remained. Across the three crop years, they calculated that $62.5 billion in payments offset roughly equivalent market losses.
The analysis covers barley, corn, oats, peanuts, rice, seed cotton, sorghum, soybeans and wheat. Its scope matters for California readers: these are national field-crop totals, not a measure of California agriculture or of returns for almonds, grapes and other specialty crops outside the calculation. Combining crops also leaves differences among crops and farms unresolved.
Economic break-even is not cash flow
The researchers use economic costs, a broader measure than checks written during a season. Their break-even calculation assigns a value to unpaid family labor and farmer-owned land, as well as purchased inputs. Covering those costs means the aggregate return accounts for those resources, rather than treating family work or owned ground as free.
That makes the result different from a cash-flow statement. A farm's cash position and its economic return answer different questions, particularly when land ownership and unpaid labor enter the calculation. The researchers' production-cost measure includes inputs needed to grow, harvest and prepare a crop for storage, but excludes management, storage costs and crop insurance premiums.
Harvest revenue also has a specific meaning here. It values the main crop and secondary products, such as grain and straw or cotton lint and cottonseed, using harvest-period prices. It excludes safety-net payments and storage returns. The analysis then adds safety-net assistance to assess how much of the harvest-time economic loss that support offsets.
How assistance enters the calculation
The safety net includes commodity programs, crop insurance, and ad hoc and emergency assistance. A related February analysis by Zulauf, Virginia Tech's David Orden and the University of Illinois' Gary Schnitkey explains that crop insurance payments are counted after subtracting farmer-paid premiums. The calculations draw on USDA's Farm Service Agency, Risk Management Agency and Economic Research Service data.
Some emergency assistance requires an allocation rather than a direct crop-specific tally. The February methods assign payments available only for all farms to the nine crops according to their combined share of U.S. farm cash receipts. Those shares range from 22% to 37%. The methods also combine calendar-year and crop-year records; the authors say multiyear comparisons should reduce that timing mismatch.
Historical comparisons and farm-level limits
The latest findings place recent support alongside two earlier stretches of persistent harvest losses. Zulauf and Monaco report that the safety net covered 98% of harvest market losses during 1981-2006. During 2014-2020, assistance slightly exceeded those losses. They place the 2023-2025 net return between those earlier periods, with recent assistance again nearly eliminating aggregate losses.
The February study covered 2023-2024, while the October update extends the comparison through 2025. The earlier study also included a separate illustration assuming a possible phase-two disaster payment, because actual payment data were not yet available. That hypothetical payment was a scenario, not a reported disbursement, and should not be read as one.
Zulauf and Monaco interpret the near-break-even totals as grounds to question whether support has become excessive. They argue that shielding the sector from losses can weaken incentives to reduce costs and maintain competitiveness. That is their policy interpretation of the aggregate results, not proof that safety-net payments caused any particular farm's costs or competitive position.
The authors also acknowledge that individual farms can face stress and bankruptcy while the sector collectively covers costs. Profits and losses vary across operations, sometimes substantially. For readers weighing claims about farm distress, the distinction is essential: the national calculation describes the combined outcome for nine crops, not the financial condition of a particular grower.
