Title 1: Commodities

What Title I actually covers

Title I is the commodity title, the section of every farm bill that handles price and income supports for major row crops (corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, rice, peanuts, dairy) and disaster assistance. In normal farm bills, this is where the biggest policy fights happen.

This time, most of those fights already happened. H.R. 1, the 2025 budget reconciliation law, locked in commodity policy through the 2031 crop year before this farm bill was even introduced. That includes Price Loss Coverage (PLC), Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC), the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program, and reference price increases.

So Title I of the 2026 farm bill is narrower than usual. It covers what reconciliation couldn’t: dairy reform, disaster program expansions, marketing loan rules, and a handful of structural fixes.

The seven things Title I actually changes

1. The Tree Assistance Program gets bigger

The Tree Assistance Program (TAP) helps orchardists, nursery growers, and tree nut producers replant after natural disasters. Title I expands it in three ways. Coverage now includes biennial tree crops and pest infestations, not just disasters. Trees that are no longer commercially viable due to a disaster are explicitly eligible. And recipients can now get an initial partial payment before they incur replanting costs, which matters if you’re a small grower without cash reserves to front the work.

USDA must also approve or deny TAP applications within 120 days of submission, a deadline that didn’t exist before.

2. A new Specialty Crop Emergency Assistance framework

This is brand-new. Specialty crop producers, fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, nursery, get a permanent framework for emergency payments when an “adverse event” (economic crisis, market disruption) wipes out a crop year. Payments are based on prior sales history, with payment limits up to $900,000 per excepted entity for operations that derive 75%+ of gross income from farming.

The catch: the bill doesn’t specify a funding mechanism. Whether this becomes a real program or a paper authority depends on appropriations.

3. Block grants for ad-hoc disaster aid

USDA can now use block grants to states and territories when administering supplemental disaster assistance. This is a structural fix, block grants are faster and more flexible than direct payment programs run from Washington.

4. Dairy gets a long-overdue update

Three things happen on dairy:

• Dairy Forward Pricing Program is made permanent (it had a sunset date).
• Dairy Indemnity, Promotion, and Research programs are extended through 2031.
• Mandatory cost-of-production reporting kicks in for dairy product manufacturers, the first real data USDA will have to update Federal Milk Marketing Order “make allowances.”

That last one is bigger than it sounds. Make allowances haven’t been updated in years; cooperative dairies have argued they don’t reflect modern processing costs.

5. Loans repayable during a government shutdown

A small but meaningful fix: producers can repay marketing assistance loans during a lapse in appropriations. Previously, when the government shut down, loan repayment was blocked, which exposed producers to interest accruals and price risk. This is now classified as “excepted activity”, meaning USDA staff can process repayments even during a shutdown.

6. Propane storage would become eligible for farm storage facility loans (if enacted)

USDA’s storage loan program covered grains, oilseeds, pulses, hay, and biomass. Title I adds propane storage facilities used primarily for agricultural production. Useful for grain dryer operators in the Midwest, poultry barns, and greenhouse operations.

7. Tobacco is back as a CCC commodity

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is the funding pipe USDA uses to support agricultural commodities. Tobacco was excluded from CCC eligibility. Title I would remove that exclusion. If enacted, tobacco would become eligible for CCC funding, though the bill doesn’t direct any specific spending toward it.

What’s NOT in Title I

This is where it matters to read carefully. Major commodity policy that you might expect from a farm bill is missing, because it was already enacted in H.R. 1:

• Reference price increases for covered commodities
• PLC and ARC formula changes
• DMC tier expansions
• Sugar program updates
• Most cotton-specific provisions

If you want to understand the full commodity safety net, you have to read Title I of this bill and Title I of the 2025 reconciliation law together. Reading just the farm bill gives you a partial picture.

The funding picture

Title I has a 10-year baseline of approximately $143 billion in mandatory spending. The new provisions in Title I add roughly $5 million to mandatory spending over six years (FY2026–FY2031), per CBO. Net 11-year impact: zero.

This is a maintenance title, not a growth title.

Who Title I matters for

• Tree fruit, nut, and nursery operators: TAP expansion is the biggest single change
• Specialty crop growers: new emergency framework, if funded
• Dairy producers: forward pricing permanence, plus better cost data
• Grain dryers and propane-using operations: new loan eligibility
• Tobacco growers: restored CCC eligibility (long-term implications)

Programs covered under Title I

• Tree Assistance Program (TAP)
• Specialty Crop Emergency Assistance Framework
• Dairy Forward Pricing Program
• Dairy Margin Coverage (carry-forward from H.R. 1)
• Marketing Assistance Loans

What’s next

Title I is one of the less controversial parts of the bill. There’s no organized opposition to TAP expansion, dairy reform, or the propane storage fix. The Senate is unlikely to make major changes here, though dairy cost reporting could become a fight if processors push back.

The bigger Title I question is whether Congress will eventually need to revisit reconciliation-locked commodity policy. If commodity prices crash before 2031, expect a fight to reopen reference prices.

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