The final coronavirus aid package of the year would direct 3 percent of its $900 billion in funding to food assistance and relief for agricultural producers, according to its Democratic and Republican sponsors. “It’s a deal that must come together,” said one of the sponsors, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, on Sunday.
Lawmakers face an informal deadline for agreement on the package by the end of this week, so it could be part of a funding bill for the federal government. “It’s not a text yet. It’s a framework,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday, but the proposal has created momentum to “provide meaningful relief for millions who are suffering economically, personally, health‑wise.”
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Manchin said the package would last until April 1. “This is an emergency relief package.”
Half of the money would go to jobless benefits and a new round of Paycheck Protection Program loans to help businesses and their employees. The nine Senate backers of the plan presented it as an outline, with few details of how funding would be divided.
One bullet point said, “$26 billion for supplemental food assistance and relief for farmers and agricultural producers.” Another said, “$10 billion for broadband.”
The anti-hunger Food Research and Action Center called for temporary 15-percent increase in SNAP benefits for the duration of the pandemic and its accompanying economic dislocation. The Trump administration rejected previous proposals for higher SNAP benefits. It has preferred its food box giveaway program.
Census data released last week indicated that one in eight adults say their household “did not get enough to eat sometimes or often in the last seven days,” said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Congress should not adjourn this year without providing adequate relief.”
House Agriculture chairman Collin Peterson said last week that if additional aid is provided for agriculture, it should be targeted to “places that we know that need help. I am not … in favor of a $20 billion slush fund they give to the secretary [of agriculture].”
The Trump administration is forecast to pour a record $46.5 billion of subsidies into the farm sector this year. It would include $24.3 billion in coronavirus payments this year, along with $5.9 billion in Payroll Protection Program loans, which will be forgiven in most cases, $3.7 billion in trade-war payments and $10 billion or so in traditional farm subsidies and land stewardship payments. Government payments will account for 39 percent of net farm income this year, the largest share of income since 41 percent in 2001.
Net farm income, a USDA measure of farm profitability, is certain to fall in the new year because coronavirus payments will run out in the next few weeks, wrote chief economist John Newton, of the American Farm Bureau Federation, in a farm-income review. “Without additional federal support of some sort,” income could drop to the range of $90-$100 billion from this year’s $119.6 billion, he wrote, and that assumes the fall rally in commodity prices is long-lived.
Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said in a DTN/Progressive Farmer interview that high levels of federal support were not feasible in the long run. “And our farm community understands it,” said Boozman, who will be the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee next year. As a result, senators look for larger exports through trade negotiations and the “phase one” agreement that calls on China to buy huge amounts of U.S. farm and food exports.