The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program unveiled by Sonny Perdue, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, is designed to provide $19 billion to support farmers and ranchers while maintaining the integrity of the food supply chain, according to the USDA.

The first USDA crop progress report, released April 13, shows that corn planting progress is on track with 2019 progress at 3% planted.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced a new pilot program that enables farmers in the Prairie Pothole region to receive payments for planting cover crops on their land for three to five years. The new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Soil Health and Income Protection Program (SHIPP) pilot is available to producers in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced the third and final tranche of 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. The payments will begin to show up in farmers’ bank accounts by the end of this week.

Corn harvests in 2019 are still behind both last year’s progress and their 5 year average, according to the most recent USDA crop progress report. Soybean harvests have caught up with last year’s harvest and remain just 3% behind the 5 year average.

This week’s USDA Crop Progress report showed that corn harvest remains behind both the 5 year average and the 2018 harvest numbers, while soybean harvest continues to regain lost ground, matching the 2018 harvest for this week.

As of this past Sunday, soybean growers were in their stretch run for this year’s harvest, but corn growers still had a long way to go.

As of Oct. 13, 22% of corn acres were in the bin, along with 26% of soybeans, according to USDA’s latest Crop Progress report. Condition of the crops moving to the harvest season remained essentially unchanged from the past several weeks.

The USDA has announced that agricultural producers now can enroll in the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) programs – two USDA safety net programs – for the 2020 crop year.

Following the Oct. 7, 2019, USDA Crop Progress report, crops still remains significantly behind schedule. Additionally, corn and soybean saw some small decreases in their reported “good” and “excellent” crop conditions.