USDA to start buying farm products for food banks next week; will increase limits on direct payments for farmers

President Trump said on Twitter that his administration will start buying American farm products for food banks next week. He apparently referred to a mid-April relief plan to buy $3 billion in dairy, meat and produce from farmers hurt by the pandemic, Makini Brice and Chris Prentice report for Reuters. Farmers and state officials have criticized the administration for waiting so long to fulfill the promise while demand at food banks soared and farmers' crops rotted in the field.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture says it will increase the caps on relief checks for farmers in the $16 billion direct payment program announced in April. "The department initially planned to cap the relief checks at $125,000 per commodity and $250,000 per farmer, which matches the general farm payment caps that Congress approved in the 2018 Farm Bill," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Morning Agriculture. "But after heavy pressure from farm-state lawmakers and industry groups, Secretary Sonny Perdue said last week that USDA will increase the aid limits before the program is finalized this month."

The higher payments could help struggling sectors, but could make the program run out of money more quickly. "There’s also the political risk of larger producers vacuuming up the money and leaving less for small farmers — a frequent criticism of the Trump administration’s trade bailout in the eyes of Democrats and farm watchdog groups," McCrimmon reports.