Under pressure from rural lawmakers, House Democratic leaders are expected to ensure USDA can continue making trade assistance payments to farmers after the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

The Agriculture Department sharply increased commodity payment rates for its 2019 trade assistance package, boosting the corn rate by 14-fold and quadrupling cotton’s, based on higher estimates of the trade damage that farmers have suffered.

When the Department of Agriculture changed the way it distributed Market Facilitation Program payments for the 2019 edition of the program, it also changed where a good chunk of the payments were going.

Qualifying producers will get payments ranging from $15 to $150 an acre under this year's version of the Market Facilitation Program, with rates varying widely by county and region.

Farmers who qualify for the upcoming round of trade assistance payments will get at least $15 an acre, says Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who will release additional details of the Market Facilitation Program later in the week.

The White House Office of Management and Budget has finished its review of trade mitigation payments to the nation's producers hit by a trade war with China.

Farmers in five Midwest states have claimed almost half of the $8.5 billion in trade assistance payments that USDA has provided so far as compensation for losses due to retaliatory tariffs.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Thursday left open the possibility that farmers who file prevented planting insurance claims may still be eligible for payments under the new trade assistance package.

Producers hampered by poor harvest weather conditions will have an additional 16 days to certify their 2018 crop production for Market Facilitation Program payments.