New York Farmer Tariff Relief Program to Close Aug. 11

The application deadline for New York’s Agricultural Resiliency Against Tariffs Program is quickly approaching.

The latest state budget includes $30 million for the program aimed at helping farmers offset federal tariff impacts and rising costs. Applications opened on June 29 and will close on August 11.

Richard Ball, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, said tariffs hit New York’s farmers when many were ramping up production.

“This spring, fertilizer and fuel prices hit us as an agriculture industry at a really tough time. Farmers are getting diesel fuel in their tractors. They’re working up their land. They’re fertilizing their crops, and both those prices went substantially very high,” said Ball.

Ball said the impact of federal tariff policies in 2025 affected the commodity prices that farmers may sell their products for – for instance, the price of milk.

“Agriculturalists are generally known as price takers, not price makers, so the price of milk is determined by the federal marketing orders,” said Ball, a lifelong farmer. “When [farmers’] costs go up to produce that milk, they don’t get to charge more for that milk.”

Funds will be distributed based on two tracks: for cow dairy farms and for livestock, livestock products, specialty crops, and aquaculture farms.

The rising costs come as farmers continue to navigate extreme weather conditions earlier this year, including a spring frost across the Northeast region in April and an EF-1 tornado in Delaware and Broome counties and wildfire smoke from Canada in July.

READ: After Frost Crop Loss, NY’s Apple Farmers Say Agriculture is a Growing ‘Gamble’

Farms are eligible for up to $25,000 in funding. You can find more information on the program at agriculture.ny.gov.

Image: Bobolink Farm in Liberty, N.Y. on July 15, 2026 (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)