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A new analysis data of the USDA (U.S Department of Agriculture) shows the U.S President Donald Trump’s farm bailouts designed to balance the impact of the U.S-China trade war are benefiting large corporate farms in America eminently while leaving small farmers in the stumble. The analysis has indicated that the top 10% of recipients of the payments made through the MFP (Market Facilitation Program) made to help out farmers and ranchers impacted by Trump’s foreign tariffs have received immense 54% of entire the payments. Some of the largest payments, including 2.8 million U.S dollars that went to a single company and 82 farmers who received more than 500,000 U.S dollars in MFP payments, vastly overshadow the less than 5,000 U.S dollars received by 80% of farmers.

An author of the study Donald Carr, conducted by the non-profit activist group the Environmental Working Group (EWG) said in a press interview, “The bottom 80%, the vast majority of farms, these guys are much smaller operations. They’re scraping by. They’re the ones taking the brunt of the trade wars. For a lot of folks, that’s not going to get them by until next month”. It is noteworthy that the MFP program was set up in 2018 and runs in addition to other subsidies provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. It includes disaster payments, crop insurance subsidies, and commodity subsidies.
The large payouts are made in part through loopholes in payment caps in the system. These payouts were set at 125,000 U.S dollars per person for 3 categories of crops, including cherries and almonds, pork and dairy, and soybeans and other row crops. The National Farmers Union slammed the distributions, in response to the findings. Bloomberg reported that the president of the Union, Roger Johnson informed the press, “It was alarming that this administration has provided the means for the largest farms to get even larger. We are disappointed that USDA did not use its discretion to focus this aid on family farmers and ranchers who need it the most”.