USDA farm export credits to go now to climate change

(Yahoo News, Washington, 31 January 2021) The Trump administration used the USDA Commodity Credit Corp. to bail out farmers suffering from its trade wars. Now the Biden administration wants to deploy a $30 billion pot of money in the Agriculture Department to tackle climate change, support restaurants and kickstart other programs without waiting for Congress. Long hidden in obscurity as a Depression-era financial institution, the Commodity Credit Corp. is used to fund certain conservation programs, foreign market development, export credit and commodity purchases. The billions paid out to farmers far eclipsed the massive 2008 auto bailout, and accounted for 40 percent of farm income in 2020.