60-Minute Report Misrepresented All Growers on Trade War Crop Aid
Last Sunday's 60-Minutes broadcast focused on Midwest crops, getting crop loss- aid due to severe trade war losses. It did not sit well with at least one walnut grower in California.Robert Hampton is a walnut grower in the area of Hickman, which is in Stanislaus County. He said many specialty crops in California did get severely hurt by trade problems, but did not get compensated anything close to what the Midwest growers got. And he's responding to the Lesley Stahl report.
The support we got was based on pounds or acres.
In the Midwest, the support checks went to the owners of the farm and one Midwest farm had 66 owners and all owners got a sizable check. Hampton explains the first check he got the year before last.
“And I said, Oh, we have too much income. You know, we have too much income, over a million dollars or whatever it was. Then last year they changed it to the number of acres and the year before that it was based on crop yield. And we got money from him. But this is of interest to me,” Hampton said.
“The difference between 2017 and 2018 was $471,000 you know, that's a lot of money and they paid us money and I'm glad to get it, but I don't think it was overwhelming. You know, we don't like what she's talking about. I think she's missed something there,” said Hampton.