• • • USDA Offers Explainer on $16 Billion Trade War Buffer to Farmers
The Trump administration will spend up to $16 billion to buffer the impact of trade war on farmers and ranchers this year and billions of dollars of additional aid may flow in the future, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.
Some $14.5 billion will be available to producers of row crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts, pork, and dairy, said Perdue and a half dozen senior USDA officials during a teleconference. The government will send $1.4 billion to buy and donate surplus crops to food banks and schools. And it will award $100 million in grants to develop new markets overseas.
Farmers will not get a payment if they don’t plant one of the crops eligible for payment. Eligible for payment this year are plantings of alfalfa hay, barley, canola, corn, crambe, dry peas, extra-long staple cotton, flaxseed, lentils, long grain and medium grain rice, mustard seed, dried beans, oats, peanuts, rapeseed, safflower, sesame seed, small and large chickpeas, sorghum, soybeans, sunflower seed, temperate japonica rice, upland cotton, and wheat, said the USDA.
