USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue told National Farmers Union conference attendees to look at markets to determine 2020 plantings, but added he was mulling adjusting crop insurance rates.
Perdue also indicated farmers should not count on another round of trade aid payments even as President Donald Trump tweeted one would be offered if recent trade agreements with China, Japan and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) are not fully implemented.
Perdue said he is looking at crop insurance guarantees that dropped for 2020 compared with 2019. “I am not sure whether we legally have the flexibility to adjust those or not, but that is one of the things we are looking at right now,” Perdue told reporters Monday in Georgia. “As prices have gone down the safety net has gone down as well,” he said. “That’s a serious consideration that we need to look at.”
The 2020 corn crop insurance price is $3.88, down three percent from last year, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. The soybean price of $9.17 per bushel is down nearly four percent from last year and the cotton price is 68 cents per pound, down seven percent from 2019.
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