In its largest payout since the program began, the USDA sent $2 billion in coronavirus aid to farmers and ranchers last week, most of it going to producers who had received a prorated payment earlier this summer. With the surge, $9 billion has been disbursed from the $16 billion available to producers through the stopgap Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), according to an update on Monday.
Three Midwestern states — Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota — have received a quarter of the CFAP money. Half of the $9 billion has gone to livestock producers, including $3.9 billion for cattle and $564 million for hogs.
The USDA decided last week to release the hundreds of millions of dollars it was holding in reserve in case of overwhelming demand for CFAP assistance, which has not materialized. It declined to disclose the amount that was released, which was equal to 20 percent of the amount producers were eligible to receive. One estimate placed the figure at $1.7 billion.
Slightly more than 541,000 applicants have now received a payment, an increase of 18,000 from last week, said the USDA. The average payment to date was $16,673, which means the newcomers would have received around $300 million, with the bulk of the $2 billion going to previous recipients.