NEW ORLEANS — President Donald Trump‘s visit to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention comes at an awkward time, as farmers and ranchers begin to feel the pinch of the partial government shutdown.
The president was set to deliver remarks Monday afternoon before an overwhelmingly friendly audience of members of the country’s largest farm group. But with the longest shutdown in U.S. history now in its 24th day, local Farm Service Agency offices have been shuttered for weeks, locking out farmers from getting loans and other help with their operations.
Other key Agriculture Department programs remain on ice, including rural housing loans, USDA data reports that can sway commodity trading, implementation of new farm bill initiatives and trade-relief payments for farmers who haven’t already applied for aid. Meanwhile, Trump’s trade turmoil hasn’t been helping farmers, either.
“We have farmers that have loans with the FSA,” said Randy Poskin, a corn and soybean grower from central Illinois who voted for Trump. “If they can’t do that business, that’s going to create problems.”
Poskin said the administration’s record so far has been “a mixed bag.” He cited the Republican tax-code overhaul and Trump’s rollback of an Obama-era water regulation known as the Waters of the U.S. rule as big wins for the industry.
But he was skeptical about whether Trump’s effort to secure funding for a border wall was worth shutting down the government.
“I know that there’s problems on the border,” he said, citing cross-border drug trafficking. “But yet, a border wall across the whole thing? I don’t see that.”
USDA has scrambled to defer the shutdown’s most dire consequences. It has extended the deadline for commodity producers to apply for trade-relief payments and is planning an unprecedented move to pay out billions of dollars in February food-stamp benefits weeks in advance.
Billy Rochelle, a farmer who raises corn, soybeans, wheat and beef cattle near Centerville, Tenn., said he hasn’t yet applied for the trade-aid program and would have faced a major headache if USDA hadn’t extended the application cutoff date, originally set for Tuesday.
Rochelle said he was generally supportive of the president’s agenda, even on trade, despite farmers and ranchers taking the brunt of the blowback as China, Mexico and other top trading partners slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farm goods.
“I know he supports rural America,” he said. “We’ve seen better years. … We’re adjusting accordingly, trying to survive, just like everybody else.”
Despite growing consequences from the shutdown and Trump’s trade wars, Rochelle, Poskin and other farmers at the event said they’re still standing behind the president — and expected him to receive a warm welcome from the Farm Bureau crowd.
“In this world, he’s very popular,” Poskin said.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
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Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/14/shutdown-trump-farm-bureau-1081908
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The Article Was Written/Published By: rmccrimmon@politico.com (Ryan McCrimmon)
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