Farmers worry emergency relief package won’t be enough
WASHINGTON — Farmers across the United States soon will begin receiving government checks as part of a billion-dollar bailout to buoy growers experiencing financial strain from President Donald Trump’s trade disputes with China.
But even those poised for big payouts worry it won’t be enough. And while support for Trump is near unwavering in the heartland, some growers said with the November election nearing, such disappointing aid outcomes potentially could affect their vote.
“It’s pretty obvious that the rural agriculture communities helped elect this administration, but the way things are going, I believe farmers are going to have to vote with their checkbook when it comes time,” said Kevin Skunes, a corn and soybean grower from Arthur, North Dakota, and president of the National Corn Growers Association.
Corn farmers get the smallest slice of the aid pie. Corn groups estimate a loss of 44 cents per bushel, but they’re poised to receive just a penny per bushel.
“If these issues haven’t been resolved, there could be a change in the way farmers vote,” Skunes said. “A person has to consider all things.”
Farmers already are feeling the effect of Trump’s trade tiffs with China and other countries. China has hit back hard, responding with its own set of tariffs on U.S. agricultural products and other goods.
The Trump administration is providing up to $12 billion in emergency relief funds for American farmers, with roughly $6 billion in an initial round. The threepronged plan includes $4.7 billion in payments to corn, cotton, soybean, dairy, pork and sorghum farmers. The rest is for developing new foreign markets for American-grown commodities and purchasing more than two dozen select products, including certain fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, meat and dairy.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced last month that soybean growers will get the largest checks, at $1.65 per bushel for a total of $3.6 billion. China is the world’s leading buyer of American soybeans, purchasing roughly 60 percent of the U.S. crop. But since Beijing imposed a 25 percent tariff on soybean, import prices have plunged.
The lack of initial detail about how the calculations were made left farmers scratching their heads.
Asked about the confusion, Rob Johansson, the Agriculture Department’s chief economist, responded that the USDA took into account a number of factors “including the share of production that is exported and the value of trade directly affected by the retaliatory tariffs.”
“The level of damage is not the same for each commodity,” he said in a written response to questions submitted by The Associated Press.
He estimated there would be more than 784,000 applications for relief.
The USDA has since released a detailed analysis of how the department made its calculations.
The breakdown has stunned corn and wheat farmers who said the payments are uneven and won’t do much of anything to help keep struggling farms afloat.
A lobbying group that represents wheat growers is challenging the way the administration determined payments for wheat farmers, who are set to receive 14 cents a bushel. Chandler Goule, CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers, said the USDA assumed U.S. wheat would be sold to China this year when it made its calculations. But the assumption was flawed, he said.
China typically makes its requests for American wheat between March and June. U.S. wheat farmers have sold, on average, 20 million bushels of wheat to China over the past three years. But none came this year, Goule said, as Trump escalated his threatening rhetoric on trade with Beijing. He hopes the per-bushel rate for wheat goes up if there’s a second round of payments.
“I am very certain that we will not sell any wheat to China this year,” Goule said. “The window we sell in has come and gone.”