Sept. 18, 2020

TSCRA’s Cattle Raisers Virtual Convention earlier this week took center stage for all of us on the government relations team. It certainly was not the convention we were all expecting at the beginning of the year, but I hope everyone enjoyed the virtual version none-the-less. Here’s to hoping we’ll see everyone in person again in 2021!

Also, don’t forget that as long as you registered, you can still log into the event hub and view the on-demand sessions at any time. We recorded the live sessions and will have those posted soon, as well.

Even with convention dominating the week, we’ve stayed busy on a number of other issues in preparation for the general election, which is in 46 short days, and in preparation for the Texas Legislative Session, which begins in only 116 days.

The biggest news of the week, though, was from Washington, where late yesterday, President Trump announced another round of aid payments through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). USDA followed on the announcement with new rules for the payments, which they are calling CFAP 2.

The rate for beef cattle is $55 per head, with payments based on the maximum owned inventory of eligible livestock, excluding breeding stock, on a date selected by the producer, between Apr. 16, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2020. Signup begins Sept. 21 and goes through Dec. 11, 2020. As with the prior round, producers can apply through their local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) office.

There will be a $250,000 payment limit per entity for all commodities combined. As with the previous round, producers will also be subject to an adjusted gross income limitation of $900,000 unless 75% or more of their income comes from farming, ranching or forestry-related activities.

More details are available at www.farmers.gov/cfap/livestock.

I’ll leave it at that for this week, but be sure to stay tuned for more to come.

Until next time!

-Jeremy