The agriculture department is authorizing up to US$12 billion for three programs
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
U.S. farmers can begin applying to receive financial assistance from the USDA to offset estimated US$11-billion economic impact of trade tariffs on American agriculture.
Yesterday, agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue officially launched three federal programs. The USDA is authorizing about US$12 billion for total assistance package.
The Market Facilitation Program will provide about US$4.6 billion in direct payments to farmers, the Food and Distribution Program will purchase up to US$1.2 billion in commodities and distribute them through nutrition programs, and the Agricultural Trade Promotion Program will provide up to US$200 million to help develop foreign markets.
Applicants for the Agricultural Trade Promotion Program have until Nov. 2 to enter proposals.
These programs offer a short-term solution as President Trump’s administration tries to develop better trade deals for the U.S., which has partially come at the expense of American farmers.
“Farmers will tell you that they would always prefer to sell a good crop at a fair price, rather than receive government aid, and that’s what long-term trade deals will accomplish,” Perdue said in a statement yesterday. “But in the meantime, President Trump has promised that he will not allow American agriculture to bear the brunt of the unjustified retaliation from foreign nations. Today we are putting the President’s promise into action.”
Since the U.S. has traded tariffs with some of its global partners, commodity prices have fallen drastically.
Repairing those relationships are crucial to a healthy ag industry.
The import charges “made the price for soybeans and corn and pork and lots of other ag commodities (drop) dramatically because they have less worldwide market, or their cost to ship their product to Japan or their product to China has gone way up,” Rodd Moesel, president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, said yesterday, KFOR reported.
Some sectors feel the federal assistance isn’t enough.
Soybean farmers will receive about US$3.6 billion in payments, whereas dairy farmers are getting about US$127 million in payments.
“It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the price decline in dairy farm prices,” Ted Sheppard, president of the Missouri Dairy Association, said in a statement yesterday. “The estimates US$127 million in direct payments represents less than 10 percent of U.S. dairy farmers’ losses caused by the retaliatory tariffs imposed by both Mexico and China.”