The USDA began issuing payments to farmers and ranchers on Wednesday in this year’s first round of trade aid to offset the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade war, said Richard Fordyce, head of the Farm Service Agency. More than 200,000 applications have been filed since enrollment opened on July 29, Fordyce told the USDA’s radio news service.
“The process began today — the payments for producers with approved applications,” said Fordyce. “Producers should be seeing … payments pretty soon.”
Up to $7.25 billion will be sent to producers in the first tranche of payments, or about half of the $14.5 billion that the Trump administration says is available. Additional payments are possible in late fall and in January if trade conditions warrant. Each of those would be 25 percent of the total trade aid, said Fordyce, or $3.635 billion.