Beginning next month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide approximately $123 million in additional, automatic financial assistance for qualifying farm loan program borrowers who are facing financial risk, as part of the $3.1 billion package to help distressed farm loan borrowers that was provided through Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

This week’s announcement builds on financial assistance offered to borrowers through the same program in October 2022.

The IRA directed USDA to expedite assistance to distressed borrowers of direct or guaranteed loans administered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency whose operations face financial risk. For example, in the October payments, farmers that were 60 days delinquent due to challenges like natural disasters, the pandemic or other unexpected situations were brought current and had their next installment paid to give them breathing room.

Last October, the USDA provided approximately $800 million in initial IRA ...