With commodity prices dropping and farm income projected to plummet, America’s farmers are growing increasingly anxious over the lack of specifics about how much money they’re going to get, and when they’re going to get it, from President Trump’s $12-billion bailout, reports The Wall Street Journal.
“We are going to look at other crops to grow. We need to make a profit,” said Lynn Rohrscheib, a farmer and at-large director of the Illinois Soybean Association, who estimated she had lost $600,000 in income because of depressed prices. “How can we afford to get by this way?”
The administration announced in July that it would direct emergency funds to farmers who are suffering under the retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and other countries in response to the trade war Trump started. A USDA representative told the Journal that the department hopes to have guidelines for the bailout set by Aug. 24, and be ready to start distributing the funds in September.
But farmers and their associations have a lot of concerns beyond the lack of details about the bailout.
One big worry is that the trade war will destroy foreign markets going forward, long after the bailout money has come and gone. “Industry leaders are also concerned that the direct payment program offers a one shot of assistance, but isn’t slated to continue in the future,” the Journal note. “It also can’t rebuild market relationships cultivated over decades, if the tariffs remain and U.S. businesses lose overseas customers to cheaper exporting nations, critics say.”