USDA continues to push the envelope to help farmers negatively impacted by this year’s disasters. USDA Deputy Secretary Steve Censky says they’re in the processing of determining how they will establish payments that were part of the $3 billion disaster bill passed by Congress. He says they will be doing a buy-up on prevented plant acres, the rate will be determined after information is released from the July 15 or 22 acreage certification.
He says they’re also determining how to provide the next round of Market Facilitation Program payments to farmers that were not able to plant a crop and filed prevented plant. By law the MFP dollars cannot be used on unplanted acres.
Censky expects a record number of prevented plant acres in the U.S. due to record rainfall and flooding. So, the agency is resurveying 14 states to get more accurate acreage data. However, many have questioned why USDA even released the June acreage report with all the planting uncertainty.
He says the resurveyed acreage date will be included in the August WASDE report.
