WASHINGTON, D.C. (RFD-TV) — The agriculture sector is weighing in on President Donald Trump’s new farm aid package. U.S. Senator Jerry Moran, R-KS, joins us on Tuesday’s Market Day Report to share his thoughts on the new assistance and what he is hearing from farmers in his state.
“I think there’s a sadness that this is necessary, but I think there’s a realization that there’s really no choice. And the timing is helpful, in assuming that our farmers can convince their bankers of the value of that $12 billion to them and their operations,” Sen. Moran told RFD-TV News. “At the moment, many of us are waiting for more information. Today we learned that USDA will have a formula by which they determine the payment per acre -- and that will be determined later this month, here in December, based upon cost of production, based upon price, and based upon yield. We’ll have an understanding of what that payment will look like to individual farms across the country. We also know the form for which the farmers are going to have to apply will be pre-filled in with their acres qualified, and they sign, and hopefully that payment is predicted to be in the mail, in the farmer’s pocketbook by February.”
Moran said this payment would likely not be enough to support row-crop and specialty-crop farmers, and that another payment will likely be necessary as the Trump Administration and US TR continue to iron out a slate of new trade agreements in the wake of China’s pullback from commodity-crop purchases.
“I would say, at least in Kansas and many places that have had long-term drought, our farmers are just not prepared for another year of significant circumstances in which the bottom line can’t be met. That’s certainly where we are, and we’re not in good shape going into another year in which the high input costs and the low commodity prices don’t meet in a way that makes agriculture profitable. We’ll continue to be the advocates [...] to keep our farmers in business.”
