By JOSH FUNK, AP Business Writer
The Agriculture Department will reopen about 2,100 county offices all across the country Thursday despite the ongoing government shutdown to help farmers and ranchers get access to $3 billion of aid from existing programs.
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The USDA said each Farm Service Agency office will have two workers who will be paid even though the government remains shutdown. These offices help farmers apply for farm loans, crop insurance, disaster aid and other programs. Thousands of other federal employees like air traffic controllers are working without pay during the shutdown.
A USDA spokesperson said this move reflects President Trump’s commitment to helping farmers and ranchers, who are traditionally some of his strongest supporters. Recently, some of them have been unhappy with Trump’s latest moves although his support remains strong across rural America.
Just this week, ranchers were unhappy with Trump’s idea to import more beef from Argentina because that could hurt their profits, and earlier this month soybean farmers complained that a $20 billion aid package for Argentina allowed that country to sell soybeans to China. Farmers are also still waiting on details of an aid package Trump promised to help them survive his trade war with China, but that aid has been put on hold because of the shutdown.
“President Trump will not let the radical left Democrat shutdown impact critical USDA services while harvest is underway across the country,” the USDA spokesman said. A White House official said the administration is using funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a USDA agency that addresses agricultural prices.
Republicans like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven and farm groups like the National Corn Growers Association and Illinois Soybean Association praised the move while Democrats accused the administration of using farmers as political pawns in the shutdown fight. Both parties have been unable to reach an agreement to fund the government and end the shutdown that began Oct. 1.
“With farm country being in the middle of harvest season, producers cannot afford delays in these programs,” Hoeven said. “They are essential to help producers maintain their operations, especially when facing challenging markets.”
Kenneth Hartman Jr., who is chairman of the Corn Growers Association, said this is a crucial time because farmers are getting ready to place orders for next year’s seed and fertilizer right now as well as settling up with the bankers for this year’s operating loans. And farmers are grappling with soaring costs.
“Because of the inflation factor, the farm economy is really in a critical situation here. So anything that the farmers can get when it comes to support from the farm programs from the farm bill of last year, we need to get that open and get that money out to them,” said Hartman, who is in the middle of harvesting his crop near Waterloo, Illinois.
The House Agriculture Committee Democrats said on X that this shows that Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins “could have supported farmers all along, but you chose not to because you’d rather use farmers’ pain to score cheap political points while increasing the cost of living for ordinary Americans by making food and health care more expensive.”
Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this story from Washington.
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