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Wheat growers push for including all classes of wheat in CFAP
The National Association of Wheat Growers is pushing for all
wheat growers to be eligible to benefit from the administration’s Coronavirus
Food Assistance Program. The program’s $16 billion in direct payments to
farmers includes producers of durum and hard red spring wheat. Other classes,
including hard red winter, soft red winter, and white wheat are not included. The
omission means most wheat growers won’t qualify for CFAP payments despite being
impacted, said Dave Milligan, president of NAWG. May wheat futures contracts at
all three exchanges saw substantial price drops and partial recovery from
January through April, according to Milligan, a wheat grower from Cass City, Michigan.
“USDA’s methodology behind CFAP neglects to incorporate price drops during the
January to April timeframe when wheat farmers were marketing their crop or that
local cash prices that farmers were receiving were less than futures prices in
many areas of the country,” said Milligan. “As a result, most wheat growers
won’t qualify for CFAP despite being impacted.”
The Coronavirus Pandemic has a negative impact on the wheat market and all
wheat growers should be eligible for the relief payments, he said.
“It is clear that all wheat producers experienced substantial price losses
during the designated timeframe and should be eligible for assistance under
CFAP” said Milligan. “Wheat farmers continue to produce a
high-quality crop but disruption in the supply chain, as a result of COVID-19,
has negatively affected wheat farmers. The Coronavirus Pandemic is already
impacting the wheat market and prices continue to drop even before the
implementation of CFAP.”
CFAP provides assistance to producers who have seen a minimum 5 percent price
decline, or who had losses from market supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19
outbreak.
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