Relief Payments Coming to Livestock Producers, Vilsack Shares in Priorities Update

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack shared this week three priorities the department is working on now four weeks after the New Year.

1. A “rural extraction economy” concept that Vilsack says contributes to a circular economy and to the department’s goals of creating more competition within meatpacking. He says this concept allows producers to profit both from production and processing.

2. COVID-19 relief payments that have not yet been made to livestock producers. Last year, the department allocated $10 billion in disaster aid payments, with $750,000 set aside for livestock. Because those payments haven’t been made, the secretary says a percentage of them should be going out quickly, “hopefully by this spring”.

3. Trade continues to be a topic of discussion as Vilsack and Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai announced India will now allow U.S. pork imports. The two also said that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and Vietnam’s reduction in tariffs have contributed to record export numbers for U.S. ag.

Read more on Vilsack’s priorities here.