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How much would CCC offset trade disruption losses?

An extension economist is not that confident about the tools USDA Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says are at his disposal to help offset losses during trade disputes.

Chad Hart with Iowa State University tells Brownfield the current Commodity Credit Corporation structure wouldn’t do farmers much good.

“Because those CCC loan guarantees and things like that really haven’t moved that much over the intervening years since the late 1990’s (when the program was last used).  So we’ll have to take some fairly significant hits on the market side before that type of protection kicks in.”

He says Secretary Perdue does have some latitude to make changes so the program is more responsive to farmers’ needs.

“But that’s at the same time as (that) the federal government is scrambling for how to reduce the deficit, bring down the debt.  So there’s pressure on both sides of this.”

Hart believes the Trump Administration wants to protect farmers from the negative effects of trade disruptions, but says Congress is leery of guaranteeing that much money up front.