farm payments

Growers in the U.S. South could lose $1.4 billion in farm subsidies over the next decade if Congress decides to align payments more closely with the crops they produce, said an analysis by Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee. “A mandatory base acre update would create winners and losers ... and most certainly complicate efforts to pass a new farm bill,” said the analysis.

Considering the time needed to convert legislation into action, the Biden administration will oversee the payment of most or all of the $13 billion in agricultural aid that was included in the latest coronavirus package, said Agriculture Undersecretary Bill Northey on Tuesday. Still, there was a chance that some funds could flow before the end of January, or even before the change in the administration on Jan. 20, Northey said during a news conference.

In less than nine months, U.S. farmers and ranchers have collected a mammoth $23.5 billion in pandemic relief payments, said the USDA on Monday, more than matching the $23 billion spent by the Trump administration to mitigate the impact on agriculture of trade war with China. Meanwhile, …

The government will send a record $32.8 billion in direct payments to farmers this year but the economic slowdown triggered by the coronavirus still will pull down farm income by 3 percent, said the FAPRI think tank at the University of Missouri on Tuesday. Federal supports would amount to 36 …

The Trump administration modified its $16 billion coronavirus aid program for agriculture so it will be easier for farmers, particularly livestock producers and specialty crop growers who complained of inadequate support, to collect larger payments, to a maximum of $250,000 per person or …

By driving down commodity prices, the coronavirus outbreak is draining $50-$90 an acre from the corn and soybean revenue that farmers expect to receive this year, said economists Brent Gloy and David Widmar on Monday. Farm leaders said the counterweight to falling prices and economic uncertainty should be federal support. (No paywall)

Farmers and ranchers will receive a projected $10.7 billion in Trump tariff payments this year, the major reason that direct federal payments will amount to 22 percent of net farm income, say USDA economists. The trade war payments would be twice as large as last year's $5.1 billion, when the administration created the stop-gap Market Facilitation Program to mitigate the impact of the Sino-U.S. trade war on the agricultural sector.