Wednesday marks the 26th day of the shutdown
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Some U.S. producers haven’t felt the effects of the current government shutdown.
Parts of the federal government shut down on Dec. 22 after Congress and President Trump couldn’t reach a spending agreement, allowing funding to expire for several departments including the USDA.
Since the shutdown, USDA Farm Services Agency (FSA) county offices have been closed, meaning farmers aren’t have their Market Facilitation Program applications processed.
But despite the government’s modified working schedule, it’s business as usual for some U.S. farmers.
“The shutdown hasn’t impacted me in the least,” Brent Wagner, a cash crop producer from Grawn, Mich., and board member of the Michigan Wheat Program, told Farms.com.
Other farmers share Wagner’s sentiments.
“My farm hasn’t been affected by the shutdown at all,” Jeff Sollars, a soybean grower from Washington Court House, Ohio, told Farms.com.
In addition, key ag reports including the World Agricultural Supply Demand and Estimates (WASDE) report, were not published on their intended dates because of the shutdown.
But even the lack of USDA commodity information hasn’t been a factor for Sollars.
“We didn’t know the results from the WASDE so how are we supposed to react to it?” he said. “Had it come out, then it might be a different story.”
If the shutdown stretches into the spring when farmers are gearing up for planting, then it might affect more producers, Sollars said.
The USDA is recalling some of its employees to reopen offices.
About 2,500 FSA employees will be on hand from Jan. 17, 18 and 22 to help farmers with existing farm loans and to ensure the agency provides 1099 tax documents to borrowers by the IRS’s deadline.
“Until Congress sends President Trump an appropriations bill in the form that he will sign, we are doing our best to minimize the impact of the partial federal funding lapse on America’s agricultural producers,” federal ag secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement.