USDA Payments: Complete Farm Service Agency Database
$147.29B in Farm Service Agency disbursements across 157 programs, 59 states, and 28,875 counties (2017-2025).
What Are USDA Farm Payments?
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) distributes billions of dollars annually through its Farm Service Agency (FSA). These payments serve multiple purposes: stabilizing farm income during price drops, compensating for natural disasters, incentivizing conservation practices, and supporting specific commodity production.
Major payment categories include:
- Commodity subsidies — Price and income support for crops like corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton
- Conservation programs — Payments for land retirement (CRP), soil health, and environmental practices
- Disaster and emergency payments — Relief for drought, floods, trade disruptions, and pandemics
- Crop insurance premium subsidies — Government pays ~60% of crop insurance premiums
- Loan programs — Marketing loans and loan deficiency payments
Explore USDA Payments
How to Use This Database
OpenSubsidies provides free, open access to USDA payment data with no registration required. You can:
- Search for any recipient, program, or location using our search tool
- Browse by state, county, or program to see payment distributions
- Compare states side-by-side with our comparison tool
- Analyze patterns through our deep-dive analysis articles
- Download data for your own research from our downloads page
Key Findings from USDA Payment Data
- The top 10% of recipients collect ~75% of all payments
- 43+ programs have fewer than 100 payments each
- Emergency spending has grown to dominate the budget
- 620,000+ recipients collect from 3+ programs
- The average payment is ~$4,600 but the median is far lower
Data Source & Methodology
All data comes from USDA Farm Service Agency payment files, covering 2017-2025. For details on how we process and present this data, see our methodology page. Raw data is available on our downloads page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are USDA payments?
USDA payments are disbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency (FSA) to farmers, ranchers, landowners, and agricultural entities. These include commodity subsidies, conservation payments, disaster relief, and emergency programs.
Who receives USDA payments?
Recipients include individual farmers, family farms, corporations, LLCs, partnerships, tribal entities, and even government agencies. The top 10% of recipients collect nearly three-fourths of all payments.
How much does USDA pay in farm subsidies?
Our database tracks $147.29B in USDA Farm Service Agency payments from 2017-2025, across 157 programs and 59 states and territories.
Are USDA payment records public?
Yes. USDA farm subsidy payment data is public information. OpenSubsidies makes this data freely searchable with no paywalls or registration required.