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Northey says more funding will be needed to help all commodities

During an Iowa Soybean Association-sponsored webinar Wednesday, ISA president and Rippey-area farmer Tim Bardole asked USDA Under Secretary Bill Northey if he thinks there could be another MFP-type program.

“I have bags of corn in the field that we put in the field at harvest and no ethanol plant will take it because they’re losing money,” Bardole said. “Not that I’m just pleading for help from the government—I hate help from the government—but I want to survive also, and I think there’s a lot of farmers kind of in the same position right now.”

Northey did not rule out the possibility of another MFP, but he said it would probably require another round of funding from Congress.

“Congress is going to go back for a Phase 4. I don’t know whether that will include more agricultural support or what kind of opportunities they’re going to provide with that,” Northey said. “But I would not at all be surprised if they’re much more sensitized to the losses within agriculture and that there may be some more resources come in that.”

Northey says he receives upwards of 20 letters a day from different commodities that are seeing losses. He estimates the requests for assistance are in a range of 50 to 60 billion dollars.