The U.S. government will pay American farmers hurt by the trade war with China between $15 and $150 per acre in an aid package totaling $16 billion, with farmers in the South poised to see higher rates than in the Midwest, Reuters reported. The assistance, starting in mid-to-late August, follows President Donald Trump’s $12 billion package last year that was aimed at making up for lower farm good prices and lost sales. U.S. farmers have been among the hardest hit in the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Shipments of soybeans, the most valuable U.S. farm export, to top buyer China sank to a 16-year low in 2018. Democrats criticized the move, saying farmers needed fair trade instead of a bailout. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue argued that U.S. farmers were disproportionately hurt by the trade dispute and that the new round of aid was justified. In the new aid package, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would pay farmers according to geographic location rather than by crop — a change from last year. Farmers in the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta states stand to be the greatest beneficiaries of the program. The average county payment rate is about $95 per acre in Alabama, $87 in Mississippi and $70 in Louisiana. Payment rates were lower in the Midwest, with a $69-per-acre county average in Illinois, the country’s top soybean producer, and a $66 average in Iowa, the top corn- and hog-producing state. The program covers 29 commodity crops, including soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum and upland cotton. It also covers dairy and hog farmers, as well as farms that grow 10 specialty crops — including almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cranberries and fresh sweet cherries.
