The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a county Market Facilitation Program payment schedule for growers with commodities that have been affected by foreign retaliatory tariffs. The assistance covers specialty crops, non-specialty crops, dairy and hogs.
The rates range from $15 to $150 per acre, depending on the impact the tariffs have had on that particular county. They are the result of President Donald Trump authorizing USDA to provide up to $14.5 billion in direct MFP payments for 2019.
Assistance for non-specialty crops is based on a single-county payment rate multiplied by a farm’s total plantings of MFP-eligible crops in aggregate in 2019, according to the USDA. Those per-acre payments are not dependent on which of those crops are planted in 2019. A producer’s total payment-eligible plantings cannot exceed total 2018 plantings.
Crops eligible for payment under this single-county payment rate are alfalfa hay, barley, canola, corn, crambe (20 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the cabbage family ), dried beans, dry peas, extra-long staple cotton, flaxseed, lentils, long-grain and medium-grain rice, millet, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, rapeseed (canola), rye, safflower, sesame seed, small and large chickpeas, sorghum, soybeans, sunflower seed, temperate japonica rice, triticale, upland cotton and wheat.
Sign-up for the program begins July 29 and ends Dec. 6. Instructions for how to sign up will be coming shortly.
The first payment will comprise the higher of either 50% of a producer’s calculated payment or $15 per acre. The first payment will be made in mid- to late August.
MFP payments will be made in up to three parts, with the second and third parts evaluated as market conditions and trade opportunities dictate. If conditions warrant, the second payment will be made in November and the third in early January.
The payment limitation for MFP is $250,000 for non-specialty crops per person or legal entity. Livestock and specialty crop producers each have an additional and separate $250,000 payment limitation. No person or entity can receive more than $500,000.
This is a second year of MFP. So far, USDA has paid about $8.59 billion to producers who applied for MFP in 2018.
View the county MFP rate schedule.
