U.S. President Donald Trump yesterday announced a new round of pandemic assistance to farmers of about $13 billion at a campaign rally in Wisconsin yesterday, Reuters reported. The new aid program — which the agriculture department is expected to release details about today — is tapping into the $14 billion in additional Commodity Credit Corporation funds that Congress agreed to prepay as part of the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Farmers are expected to be allowed to start applying for the new program on Monday. How much certain crops will receive is not known, but the program is set to make direct payments to producers of meat, dairy, grain, vegetables and other products. The payments will be designed similarly to an earlier aid package: calculated based on yields of crops and the impact the coronavirus pandemic had on the price of the commodities. Trump in April announced a $19 billion relief program to help U.S. farmers cope with the impact of the virus, including $16 billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables and other products. That came on the heels of $28 billion in trade aid given to the farm sector over 2018 and 2019. A government watchdog agency said on Monday the 2019 aid favored farmers from the U.S. Southeast, primarily those growing crops like cotton or sorghum, over those in other parts of the country.
