News

Frustration over MFP payments continues

A group of Senate Democrats released a report claiming that the Trump administration is unevenly distributing trade assistance to farmers impacted by the trade dispute with China.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown says the Market Facilitation Program payments are benefiting some regions more than others.

“They’re not going to Midwest, medium-sized and family farms, they’re going to southern and much larger farms,” he says.

He says, for example, farmers in Ohio and Indiana are receiving nearly $24 less per acre than farmers in Georgia and other Southern states.

Brown says there is also the issue of failing to recover market access with no long-term plan for rebuilding markets.

“I don’t just worry about farmers today being able to sell their corn and soybeans, I worry about what this means in the future because we know how hard American agriculture has worked to open up markets in other countries and you don’t do that in one planting season, you do that over several years,” he says. “If you lose those markets, other countries begin to look elsewhere and getting them back, once these tariffs are done, is difficult and the work has to begin again to get these markets back.”

But, Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue insists farmers who need the most help – in the Midwest – are getting it. He says MFP payments are helping farmers continue to move forward during the trade war.

Audio: Senator Sherrod Brown

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!