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NCGA, NAWG question USDA trade aid formula

The method used by USDA to calculate trade aid payments is being questioned by some commodity groups.

Iowa farmer Kevin Ross, the incoming first vice president of the National Corn Growers Association, says the penny per-bushel payment for corn will have a very slim impact.

“Especially considering the data we had and submitted to USDA on the total impact to corn farmers and the $6.3 billion dollars-worth of damage that we can quantify for trade.  And certainly it’s not just directly corn, it’s also DDG’s and ethanol exports that have been hammered.”

U.S. Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says his Department used calculations affirmed by the White House Council of Economic Advisers and Office of Management and Budget.

“And we feel comfortable in that.”

Perdue did tell reporters this week he can understand why corn farmers would say “why this, why that for soybeans?”

“Yet that was the determined amount of tariff damage when you look at where tariffs were enforced and where we had shipped corn.  That’s how the calculations came out.”

National Association of Wheat Growers CEO Chandler Goule says his organization also wants more information on the payment formula.  Goule tells Brownfield he is meeting with USDA chief economist Robert Johannson Friday afternoon.