Bridge Assistance Good, But More Work is Needed to Help Farmers

The announcement of the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program is generating both excitement and caution among farmers nationwide. Mike Stranz, Vice President of advocacy for the National Farmers Union, talks about NFU's perspective and what this new package could mean for producers.

“This is the kind of long-awaited trade aid package that the administration has been talking about. This will provide up to $12 billion in assistance to farmers and ranchers, at least for starters, farmers who are affected by the trade war with the loss in revenue stemming from lower exports and higher input costs, too. So we've got $11 billion that will be directed towards corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, commodity crops, and some of the details are still yet to be released on that.”

An additional $1 billion is set to be directed towards specialty crops in other areas of agriculture. At the same time, farm bankruptcies are expected to reach their highest level this year, following four straight years of input costs outpacing revenues and financial pressure continues to build across farm country.

“So this assistance will help in the short term, but that shouldn't be confused with the long term solution. We still need structural fixes to help restore vitality and viability to our rural economy and to

farms.”

Contending that Congress needs to pass a farm bill.