September 21, 2020

CFAP 2.0 details

Topic: Issues

From AFBF's Market Intel

On Friday, the administration announced details of the new $14-billion-dollar Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, or CFAP2, that will provide direct payments to farmers and ranchers to partially offset COVID-19-related losses for producers. This follows an estimated $10 billion in support provided to cattle, hog, dairy, non-specialty crop, specialty crop and other producers to offset COVID-19 related losses experienced through mid-April 2020. Sign-up for CFAP2 runs Sept. 21 through Dec. 11 through USDA’s Farm Service Agency county offices.

CFAP2 payments will be broken into three categories: price trigger commodities, flat-rate commodities and sales commodities. In order to qualify for a payment under the price trigger commodity category, the commodity must have suffered a 5%-or-greater national price decline based on a comparison of the average prices for the weeks of Jan. 13-17, 2020, and July 27-31, 2020. Flat-rate crops either do not meet the 5%-or-greater national price decline trigger noted above or do not have data available to calculate a price change. These row crops without price information will be eligible for a $15-per-acre base payment. Sales commodities include specialty crops, aquaculture and other commodities not included in the price trigger and flat-rate categories. For sales commodities, payment calculations will be based on a producer’s 2019 sales.

Of the $14 billion dollars in CFAP2 support, USDA’s cost-benefit analysis estimates corn producers will receive $3.5 billion, or 25% of the total CFAP2 resources. Following corn, beef cattle producers are expected to receive $2.8 billion, or 20% of CFAP2 funding. Dairy farmers are expected to receive $2 billion, or 14% of the available support. Hog producers are estimated to receive $1.7 billion or 12% of CFAP2. Soybean producers are estimated to receive $1.4 billion, or 10% of the funds. Wheat, flat-rate crops, eggs and other commodities are expected to receive $2.5 billion, or 18% of the CFAP2 support.

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