UNDATED (LEARFIELD) – A new nonpartisan report shows Minnesota farmers didn’t bode well when it came to disbursement of federal dollars to help recover from the recent trade turmoil.
U.S. Senator Tina Smith says the report shows deep regional inequities. She says eight of the top nine states with the highest payments per acre were in the South.
“Cotton, which was actually not even that damaged by these trade policies, received 33 times more than there estimated trade damage,” said Smith. “This was really unfair and I think really hurt Minnesota farmers and producers.”
Less than 10% of payments went to farms that produced specialty crops, dairy, or hogs.
For the 2019 program, USDA doubled the maximum payment farmers could receive from $125,000 to $250,000 per person, which concentrated more dollars to the largest farms and ignored small farms that were struggling.
