The National Corn Growers Association is asking Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue to look at changes in the Market Facilitation Program as the second round of payments draws near. NCGA President Lynn Chrisp wrote a letter to Perdue saying that he’s continuing to hear from farmers who are disappointed in how the USDA calculated the first round of payment to farmers. Chrisp said the calculations were too narrow in scope so the agency didn’t take into account the real-time impacts of trade disputes on markets. The NCGA is asking Perdue to include ethanol and Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles (DDGS) into the way the agency calculates trade damages for corn. According to the USDA’s own methodology, trade damage to ethanol and DDGS amounted to $254 million, something not taken into account during the first round of payments. Chrisp is also asking the secretary to allow farmers hit hard by natural disasters to use an alternative to 2018 production numbers for their MFP calculations. If the agency makes that change, it would allow producers suffering from drought, hurricane damage, or other natural disasters to not be penalized twice.
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