2019 Market Facilitation Payments Application Process Under Way

Dec 13, 2019

On July 25, 2019, United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced details on a $16 billion package aimed at supporting American agricultural producers that were impacted by retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods. As part of the package, the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) will provide $14.5 billion in producer payments under the authority of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). This is the second round of support payments to farmers by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Eligible producers may apply for program payments through their local Farm Services Agency (FSA) offices.

The signup period for the 2019 MFP runs from July 29, 2019 through December 6, 2019.

There are a few key changes with this second round of MFP payments that you should be aware of:

  • Payment limitation is $250k per person/legal entity, with a total of $500k that a single person/legal entity may receive (e.g., can receive $250k payment for hogs and $250k for specialty crops).
  • Payment rate for hogs is $11 per head of live hogs owned on a day selected by the producer between April 1 and May 15 of 2019. The producer can receive up to 50% of the calculated payment this year, which payments will begin in mid to late August of this year. The producer must actually own the live hogs in order to be eligible.
  • The average AGI limitation is different. A producer must either (1) have average AGI less than $900k OR (2) verify that 75% of its average AGI comes from farming or ranching activities.
  • Producers who missed out on the 2018 MFP payments because they were over the $900k limit may apply for a supplemental 2018 MFP payment if they can verify that 75% of their average AGI comes from farming or ranching activities. The application period will be the same as the period for the 2019 MFP (July 29-Dec 6). This means they can apply for BOTH supplemental 2018 MFP AND 2019 MFP. The tax years for computing average AGI are different for the supplemental 2018 MFP. Based on the way the law is written, average AGI for the supplemental 2018 MFP is calculated using the 2013, 2014, and 2015 tax years (rather than 2014, 2015, and 2016 for all other 2018 USDA program payments).

If you have any questions or need any additional info, please reach out to us at 501.376.9241