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Ag economist says future of ad hoc farm payments unsure
An ag economist says the future of more special payments for farmers in 2021 is in question.
David Widmar, cofounder of Ag Economic Insights, says it’s important to remember that the farm economy wasn’t in good shape going into the trade war, which resulted in Market Facilitation Program Payments for farmers. Because of the pandemic, even bigger payments through the CFAP program have been issued. But, he says, things could quickly go back to normal…
“These are all ad hoc programs, for the most part. There’s a lot of ways of slicing the data but it looks like to us that without additional action by Congress or the USDA ad hoc programs are going to disappear and we could see something closer to $10-15 Billion dollars next year.”
Widmar says it’s hard for producers to plan their budgets for 2021 because none of the ad hoc programs are on the books.
The outlook has improved greatly with recent large purchases of U.S. commodities by China – but he says it remains to be seen if those continue.
