Farmers worry bailout won’t be enough

U.S. to pay growers affected by China tariffs

WASHINGTON — Farmers across the United States soon will start 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 those poised for big payouts worry it won’t be enough.

“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.

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 three-pronged 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 buying more than two dozen select products.

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, but since Beijing imposed a 25 percent tariff on soybeans, imports prices have plunged.

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.

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 a single penny per bushel.

Jack Maloney, 62, said that corn farmers will be getting so little in bailout aid that for roughly 200,000 bushels of corn a farmer would get only about $2,000 for their losses.

“That’s not even beer money,” said the Brownsburg, Indiana, corn and soybean grower.

“Agriculture has always been the butt of all the trade wars,” he said.

Michael Conroy The Associated Press Jack Maloney in front of the grain bins Wedensday on his Little Ireland Farms in Brownsburg, Ind. Maloney said that the aid for farmers is “a nice gesture” but that what farmers really want is free trade.