In 2020, two rounds of Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments provided $23.5 billion to U.S. farmers and ranchers who faced sales losses, lower prices, or increased production and marketing costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CFAP was USDA’s primary pandemic assistance program. According to the USDA Economic Research Service’s(ERS) data product Farm Income and Wealth Statistics, producers in nine states received more than a billion dollars each in estimated CFAP payments in 2020.
Those states were: Iowa ($2.1 billion), California ($1.8 billion), Nebraska ($1.6 billion), Minnesota ($1.4 billion), Texas ($1.3 billion), Illinois ($1.3 billion), Kansas ($1.1 billion), Wisconsin ($1.0 billion) and South Dakota ($1.0 billion).
In calendar year 2020, direct federal payments to U.S. farmers and ranchers totaled $45.6 billion. Therefore, the payments made by CFAP were more than half of all direct government payments made that year. CFAP continued to make payments to U.S. producers and ranchers in 2021. —USDA ERS
