Farmers, ranchers get trade war funds
More than 2,000 Oklahoma farmers and ranchers received payments totaling nearly $2 million in September and October as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to compensate them for losses resulting from international trade disputes.
The 2,169 payouts to Oklahomans are only the first, small batch of so-called Market Facilitation Program funds. Data on the payments was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that tracks agricultural subsidies.
“Our folks don’t really want this program, they want free and open trade,” said Rodd Moesel, president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau. “I think there’s an appreciation from a lot of people that this is better than nothing and helps soften the blow while the negotiations are still going.
“But they don’t want the world to become a world where this is normal and this is an ongoing thing.”
Farmers and ranchers can apply for the direct payments through mid-January. Those payments are doled out based on formulas— six cents per pound of cotton, eight dollars per hog, 14 cents per bushel of wheat, for example. Corn, dairy, sorghum, soybeans, shelled almonds and sweet cherries are also covered.
It’s expected that $12 billion will be sent to agricultural producers nationwide. Data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to date contains only a fraction of that, about three percent, but offers the first glance at where the money is going.
Some in Oklahoma have received as little as $1 from the program. Only one Oklahoma company received the maximum amount of $125,000: Hitch Enterprises in Guymon.
“It’s helpful and it’s better than nothing,” said Jason Hitch, the company’s co-owner. “(Trump) got a lot of good press out of it, but I don’t think it’s really done much at this point. They haven’t even managed to fund it to the level they swore they were going to. So, maybe it’s more beneficial longterm.”
Twenty-six percent of American pork is exported, making it a soft target for Mexico and China’s retaliatory tariffs. China, which buys pork products Americans don't eat, such as feet and internal organs, levied a 62 percent tariff on American pork over the summer. Pork prices plummeted, costing Hitch Enterprises millions of dollars.
“We got a little bit of money but it didn’t even work out to be pennies on the dollar,” Hitch said of the Market Facilitation Program funds.
The largest payments in Oklahoma went to farmers and ranchers in the state’s rural northwest and Panhandle. Fifteen people or companies received more than $10,000 each, including four in the Panhandle town of Turpin, population 467.
City residents benefited too. Sixty-four people in Oklahoma City received a total of $24,574 and 37 Tulsa residents received $5,324, despite a low number of farms in the cities. Forty-four people in Edmond received $10,614 in taxpayer funds from the program.
"These numbers match trends EWG has been tracking for years," said Sarah Graddy, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Working Group, "which indicate that federal farm subsidies tend to benefit the largest, most financially secure farmers — or those who have a financial interest in a farm, but may never set a foot on it, let alone drive a tractor."
Mel Bollenbach says that doesn't describe him. The northwest Oklahoma City resident and Morgan Stanley broker received $2,624 in payments to supplement the wheat crop at his farm along the Cimarron River, east of Kingfisher. Bollenbach says he manages the 2,800 acres by himself on nights and weekends.
“I’m out there every day feeding horses and cattle or sowing wheat,” he said. “I probably spend more time on the farm than most farmers.”