New York farmers can apply for up to $25,000 in tariff relief

New York farmers can now apply for direct payments of as much as $25,000 under a new $30 million state program designed to blunt the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program opened with a minimum award of $1,000 and is aimed at helping producers absorb higher costs for grain, feed, chemicals, fertilizers and machinery.

The program was announced in Kathy Hochul’s 2026 State of the State address and funded in the Fiscal Year 2026-2027 state budget. Applications are due by Aug. 11, and eligible farms must have been in business in 2025, still be operating now, have active agricultural production in New York and meet an eligible farm income requirement.

Hochul called the tariffs “reckless and damaging,” arguing that New York producers have been squeezed by rising input prices and unsettled export markets. Hochul’s office put annual tariff-linked cost increases at about $20,000 for some farms. Richard A. Ball, the state’s agriculture commissioner, on the program: it will not make farmers whole.

New York is the nation’s fifth-largest dairy producer, with more than 16 billion pounds of milk annually, and dairy accounts for nearly half of the state’s total agricultural sales. A tariff-disruption report found New York milk exports in the first half of 2025 ran 7% to 12% below the same period a year earlier. Hochul convened a March 4 roundtable with agriculture leaders on the effects of tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China.

A North Dakota State University Agricultural Trade Monitor estimated that tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act generated about $958 million from selected agricultural input imports between February and October 2025, including about $530 million from farm machinery, $273 million from agricultural chemicals, $110 million from fertilizers and $44 million from seeds. At the same time, the administration has asked Congress for $11 billion in extra farm aid, on top of a $12 billion package unveiled in December.

Residents paid an estimated $13.5 billion in tariff payments, or about $1,751 per household. By late May, the administration had sent out $20.6 billion in tariff refunds, while a trade judge urged the White House to speed refunds on more than $10 billion in tariff revenue collected and later deemed illegal.