A north Louisiana congressman is asking for help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide relief to state soybean farmers during the current market disruption with China.
Congressman Ralph Abraham, R-Alto, wrote to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue that crops that had been going to the West Coast en route to China are now heading for the Mississippi River en route to South America, Europe and Africa. China put a 25 percent tariff on soybeans following the Trump administration putting tariffs on a number of products coming from China.
Storage silos along the river are full, he noted, and local farmers are having problems finding places to store soybeans while waiting to be shipped.
According to Abraham's office, he asked to amend the Market Facilitation Program so tariff relief provided to farmers is based on planted acres instead of harvested acres. The tariff relief program, he noted, only works if a farmer harvests beans, takes them to a grain elevator and gets a receipt from the grain guys.
He also asked the USDA to find ways to allow other commodity bin operators to temporarily store the beans. Many corn bins, he noted, are currently empty.
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