Help Navigation

Go to Navigation - Go to Content

U.S. 10% largest farms got 50% of trade aid in 2019

07 January 2020

The Market Facilitation Program (MFP) of the Trump administration allocated $15.9 billion of subsidies to the U.S. crop and hog farmers in 2019 as compensation for their losses due to the U.S.-China trade war. However, most of the aid allegedly went to the largest agricultural enterprises leaving the medium and smaller ones behind.

According to the USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), top 10% U.S. farms with the average annual sales over $1.7 million got 47% of the MFP subsidies and 53% of the crop insurance subsidies by results of 2019. On average, these farms received 210$ of aid per hectare. For comparison, the medium-sized farms with the average annual sales of $45,000 received about 138$ per hectare. The American Enterprise Institute estimated that these payments are three to four times bigger than the farms’ actual losses. 

Read more