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A 110-year-old Green County, Wis., cheese cooperative has filed for bankruptcy but the farmers who own the co-op and supply milk to the Twin Grove facility have found temporary buyers for their milk, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Maple Leaf Cheese Cooperative and Maple Leaf Cheesemakers failed to reach agreement on a contract, and production at the plant ended this week. The co-op, which owns the building and some of the equipment inside, filed for chapter 11 protection on Wednesday to restructure its debts so it could buy more time to find a new partner to make cheese at the plant. The 25 farmers have found temporary markets for their milk, but the hope is to reopen the cheese plant in the next three to four months so the farmers can return to supplying milk to the plant, located southeast of Monroe, Wis. The cooperative is hoping that the bankruptcy court will authorize payments owed to patrons for milk delivered prior to Wednesday’s petition date. Maple Leaf Cheesemakers announced in October that it would cease production at the Twin Grove plant in early December, which left farmers scrambling to find new homes for the combined 3.5 million pounds of milk they supplied monthly to the cheesemakers.

A shaken U.S. agriculture industry already “stressed” by a profitability squeeze in a pandemic year may see little relief in 2021, according to a survey of industry lenders, Bloomberg News reported. Agricultural lenders reported that “just under” 51 percent of their borrowers were profitable this year and about half those lenders don’t expect borrower profitability to improve next year, according to the Fall 2020 Agricultural Lender Survey from the American Bankers Association and Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, also known as Farmer Mac. That’s down from 2019, when lenders said about 57 percent of borrowers were profitable. Almost a quarter of lenders expect bankruptcies to increase this year, similar to 2019, though 57 percent expect a rise next year due to a marked increase in strain. Such a view “may be due to expectations that the damages of 2020 will take time to lead to bankruptcies, uncertainty in government program support, and expectations for weak markets in 2021,” the report said.

The U.S. Agriculture Department on Friday released details of a second round of COVID-19 aid for farmers, which will pay up to $14 billion to growers of major crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat, as well as livestock, dairy and tobacco, Reuters reported. The aid follows a $19 billion relief program announced in April to help U.S. farmers cope with disruptions to the food supply chain and plummeting demand from restaurants during the pandemic. Less than $10 billion has been paid out to date. The administration has been criticized for the $28 billion spent over 2018 and 2019 to compensate farmers for lost sales during a tariff war with China. The new aid package will largely be funded by the Commodity Credit Corp, a Depression-era program created to support farm income. Funds from the corporation do not need to be approved by Congress. The USDA also said that up to $100 million in aid for tobacco farmers will come from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. 

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. 

More U.S. farmers are filing for bankruptcy, as federal payments projected to reach record levels this year fall short of compensating for the coronavirus pandemic and a yearslong slump in the agricultural economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. About 580 farmers filed for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection in the 12-month period ended June 30, according to federal data. That was 8 percent more than a year earlier, though bankruptcies slowed slightly in the first half of 2020 partly because of an infusion of federal aid and hurdles to filing during the pandemic, according to agricultural economists and attorneys. The pandemic has pressured prices for many commodities, squeezing farmers who raise crops and livestock, and prolonging a six-year downturn in the Farm Belt. The Trump administration is expected to dole out a record $33 billion in payments to farmers this year, according to the University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. The funds, including those intended to help farmers hurt by trade conflicts and the coronavirus, would push government payments to 36 percent of farm income, the highest share in nearly two decades, the institute said. “Agricultural markets have been horrible, and the pandemic exacerbated it, big time,” said Paul Swanson, an Oshkosh, Wis.-based attorney. He said he has 40 open farm-bankruptcy cases, about a third more than last year. Before the pandemic, a global grain glut and foreign competition had pushed down agricultural prices. Trade disputes deepened the pain, drawing retaliatory tariffs from top buyers of U.S. farm commodities, such as China and Mexico. Then the coronavirus hit, upending the U.S. food-supply chain. As restaurants closed, farmers plowed under thousands of acres of vegetables and dumped milk into manure lagoons. Corn prices plummeted as Americans stopped driving, cutting demand for ethanol, a corn-based biofuel blended into gasoline. Prices for slaughter-ready cattle and hogs dropped as meatpacking plants that became virus hot spots slowed or halted production. Hog farmers have lost nearly $5 billion in actual and potential profits for 2020, according to the National Pork Producers Council, a trade group. In California, agricultural businesses stand to lose as much as $8.6 billion, according to a study commissioned by the California Farm Bureau Federation.