US Rice, Cotton Farmers Get Biggest Relief In Trump Bailout

The US Department of Agriculture unveiled long-awaited details of its $12 billion aid package for farmers, with American growers of rice and cotton standing to get the biggest payments.

But while the payments were welcomed by farmers and industry groups — and fell broadly within expectations — many said the amounts weren’t sufficient to rescue the ailing farm economy.

Illinois farmer John Bartman said the payments for corn aren’t even enough to cover seed costs, which can run $50 to $100 per acre. “We can’t even buy a pizza for $30,” he said.

President Donald Trump unveiled the package earlier this month, but the relief plan lacked specifics on how much each farmer would be paid. Growers planning for next year’s planting have awaited those details as they face financial pressure from low crop prices, the president’s trade war and high costs for fertilizer, seeds and machinery.

The Farmer Bridge Assistance Program includes $11 billion in one-time payments expected by the end of February for farmers of crops ranging from corn and soybeans to peanut and sorghum, as well as $1 billion for sugar and specialty crops.

Payments top out at $132.89 per acre for rice and $117.35 for cotton, with a low of $8.05 for flax, according to the USDA. For soybeans, considered the poster child of the US-China trade dispute, farmers can apply for payments of $30.88 per acre and for corn, the most widely grown US crop, payments were set at $44.36 per acre.

“These one-time payments give farmers the bridge to continue to feed and clothe America and the world while the Trump administration continues opening new markets and strengthening the farm safety net,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in the statement.

The National Corn Growers, which represents more than 36,000 US corn farmers, welcomed the assistance but said in a statement that more work is needed to develop markets to provide “long-term economic certainty.”

Wesley Davis, chief agriculture economist at Meridian Ag Advisors, said farmers who rent fields will remain under pressure even with the aid.

“It still makes it hard for, especially the farmers that are leasing land — which is about 50% of acres for corn and soy — to pencil out in the green this year,” Davis said. “So I think it’s going to be beneficial to farmers that own their land, but ones that are paying cash rent, I think they’re still gonna be pretty squeezed.”

Davis noted that farmers have already committed to most of their crop inputs for the coming season, “so this isn’t going to shift that commitment necessarily.” He said most surveys show farmers say they’ll be using the bailouts to pay off debt, so that won’t translate into equipment or crop input sales.

Walter Kunisch, senior commodity market strategist at Hilltop Securities Inc., said the payment rate should help bring stability to cotton farmers, who have been hit particularly hard by low crop prices.

“We believe that the rate will provide an incentive to plant cotton and not rotate to soybeans and corn in the all-important Delta and Mid-South growing regions,” he said.