Assistance program
Reimbursement Transportation Cost Payment Program for Geographically Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers
$20.5 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Farm Service Agency, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments With Unrestricted Use
- CFDA number
- 10.098
- What it does
- The intended goal of the program is to provide direct reimbursement payments to a geographically disadvantaged farmer or rancher who transports an agricultural commodity, or inputs used to produce an agricultural commodity during a fiscal year. Input transportation cost are transportation costs of inputs used to produce an agricultural commodity including, but not limited to, air, ocean, and land freight of chemicals, feed, fertilizer, fuel, seeds, plants, supplies, equipment parts, and other inputs. The Farm Service Agency (FSA), Deputy Administrator for Farm Programs (DAFP) administers RTCP. The program will be carried out in the field by FSA State and county committee and FSA employees. State and local governments and their political subdivisions and related agencies are not eligible for RTCP payments.
- Who benefits
- The U.S. farmers and ranchers outside the continental U.S. (the 48 contiguous U.S.) receive the ultimate benefit from the program because they operate at a competitive disadvantage relative to farmers and ranchers in the continental U.S. This disadvantage is due to the high cost of transporting agricultural commodities from those areas to markets in the continental U.S. and in other countries, and the high cost of transporting agricultural inputs to those areas. Geographically disadvantage farmers and ranchers located in Hawaii, Alaska, or an insular area such as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Virgin Islands of the U.S. are the primary beneficiaries.
- Who applies
- To be eligible to receive program benefits, a geographically disadvantaged farmer or rancher must: (1) Be a producer of an eligible agricultural commodity in substantial commercial quantities (2) Incur transportation costs for the transportation of the agricultural commodity or input used to produce the agriculture commodity (3) Submit an application for payment during the specified period applicable for each fiscal year. (4) Be in compliance with conservation and wetland protection requirements on all their land (5) Be a citizen of or legal resident alien of the U.S. Eligible commodities include any agricultural commodity (including horticulture, aquaculture, and floriculture) food, feed, fiber, livestock (including elk, reindeer, bison, horses, and deer), insects or products thereof.
- Authorized by
- 7 U.S.C. § 8792
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$10.2M
50%
Other
$10.3M
50%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments