USDA releases details for second round of trade mitigation

Released: July 25, 2019

TIFTON, Ga. — Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced more details on the support package that includes $16 billion for American farmers and ranchers while the Administration continues to work on free, fair, and reciprocal trade deals. 

“We are very glad to see that the hard work Secretary Perdue and his team put into developing this package will help our growers,” says Armond Morris, chairman of the Georgia Peanut Commission and farmer from Tifton, Georgia. “And, we are glad to have support from the Administration while they continue to work on these important trade deals.”

The Market Facilitation Program (MFP) for 2019, will be administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and will provide $14.5 billion in direct payments to producers. The Market Facilitation Program (MFP) includes peanuts, among other non-specialty and specialty crops, as an eligible crop to receive payments from the USDA. The MFP will pay peanut producers on a county per acre payment rate. Peanut producer payments will range in Georgia from $15 to $150 an acre depending on which county the peanuts are being produced in 2019. 

As compared to last year’s round of MFP payments, this year’s program revises payment limit language for eligible producers and will allow a maximum of $500,000 to go to a single producer or legal entity across all three aspects of MFP with a $250,000 limit for a single phase of the program. The adjusted gross income (AGI) limit barring program participation if an applicant’s AGI tops $900,000 also applies, but is waived if three-fourths of that income comes from agriculture.

Market Facilitation Program payments will be made in up to three tranches. The first payment will be made in mid-to-late August with the second and third payments coming in November and January. Applications will be available beginning Monday, July 29, online at www.farmers.gov/manage/mfp.

Source: Georgia Peanut Commission