James O’Brien, head of the State Department Office of Sanctions Coordination, said leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this week discussed efforts to revive the deal, which Russia abandoned in July.

Western countries have accused Russia of using food as a weapon of war by quitting the Black Sea deal, which had helped bring down global food prices, and then carrying out repeated air strikes on Ukrainian ports and grain stores.

“A couple of factors are going to… affect their calculation. One is that their leverage will decline. Ukraine’s already now had a few ships leave and stay in territorial waters,” O’Brien said of Moscow’s thinking on the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

He said the second factor was that Russia’s pricing would be hurt by its attacks on Ukrainian ships, which leads to insurers raising rates and Moscow’s costs going up.

“Over the next several weeks, I think the factors that led Russia to believe it would benefit from withdrawing are going to change.”

Russia quit the grain deal, brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in 2022, saying that its own food and fertilizer exports, while not subject to Western sanctions, faced obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.

Ukrainian ports across the Danube River have since become a vital export corridor for Ukrainian grain, and Russia has targeted the route with regular air strikes.

Ukraine last month announced a “humanitarian corridor” to release ships trapped in its ports and to circumvent a de facto blockade.

— Reporting for Reuters by Daphne Psaledakis, Humeyra Pamuk and Michelle Nichols.

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“The United States … calls for Russia to immediately return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a briefing, referring to a pact that had allowed export of Ukraine grain by the Black Sea. Russia quit the deal on July 17.

Patel said the U.S. was seeking “to possibly find ways and corridors in which we can continue to get grain to the places it needs to go,” without providing details. He added that Washington has not seen any indication from the Russians that they wanted to go back to the deal.

Since quitting the accord, Russia has attacked Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure. Exports through the corridor were vital to helping address a global food crisis worsened by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Overnight air strikes damaged silos and warehouses at Reni on the Danube River, a vital wartime route for food exports, Ukrainian officials said. They posted photos of destroyed storage facilities and piles of scattered grain and sunflowers.

“Putin simply does not care about global food security,” Patel said, adding that Moscow’s attacks were escalating food shortages.

Moscow has repeatedly said it was ready to return to the deal “immediately” once an accompanying agreement concerning Russian exports was implemented.

— Reporting for Reuters by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis, Kanishka Singh and Daphne Psaledakis.

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The plan would require an unspecified increase in the amount of ethanol that oil refiners must add to their fuel in 2020, and would also aim to remove further barriers to the sale of higher ethanol blends of gasoline like E15, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said in a statement.

“President Trump’s leadership has led to an agreement that continues to promote domestic ethanol and biodiesel production, supporting our nation’s farmers and providing greater energy security,” EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler said.

The deal is widely seen as an attempt by President Donald Trump to mend fences with the powerful corn lobby, which was outraged by the EPA’s decision in August to exempt 31 oil refineries from their obligations under the RFS. This freed the refineries from the requirement to blend biofuels or buy credits from those who do.

Biofuel companies, farmers and Midwest lawmakers complained that the waivers undercut demand for corn, which is already slumping due to the U.S. trade war with China. Oil refiners say the waivers protect blue-collar jobs and have no real impact on ethanol use.

Senators from Iowa, the nation’s biggest ethanol producing state, welcomed the move.

“The President heard that message and has acted on it” Republican Senator Joni Ernst said in a statement. “Our message was clear: uphold the RFS —15 billion means 15 billion,” Ernst, who was instrumental in putting together the deal, said.

The rules, which will be finalized after a period of public comment, would “ensure that more than 15 billion gallons of conventional ethanol be blended into the nation’s fuel supply beginning in 2020,” the EPA said, without giving an exact number. Any changes to blending volume mandates for 2020 under the U.S. biofuel law, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), must be finalized by Nov. 30.

Before Friday’s proposal, the EPA had called for the refining industry to add 20.04 billion gallons of biofuels, including 15 billion gallons of ethanol, into their fuel in 2020. The Trump administration had also already provided a boost to E15 earlier this year, by lifting an Obama-era ban on its sale during summer months.

While the move was largely welcome by biofuel groups, some industry players said they were concerned that the EPA declined to provide an exact figure for the 2020 blending quotas. A brief EPA call with reporters offered little insight, with an agency official saying only that the mandates will be based on a calculation of waived volumes over the previous three years.

Tim Gannon, a farmer from Iowa and a former official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was skeptical.

“It is very much in question whether this gets done by 2020,” he said. “Every time the President makes a promise on the RFS, his EPA administrator manages to roll it back for Big Oil… The question now is will this time be any different?”

Oil industry upset

Oil companies have consistently resisted measures to expand the biofuels market, which they view as a competitor. Refiners have vehemently complained that the requirements under the RFS cost them a fortune. Their weeks-long efforts to include oil-friendly measures in the final deal announced Friday failed.

“We are deeply concerned about the administration’s decision to, once again, play politics with our fuel system by increasing an already onerous biofuel mandate, placing greater strain on the U.S. manufacturers he promised to protect and threatening higher costs for consumers,” the American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers industry groups said in a joint statement.

Trump waded into the issue early in his presidency after representatives of the refining industry complained about the high costs of compliance, seeking to tap into his administration’s support for rolling back regulation.

Trump’s EPA had since vastly expanded its use of the provision allowing small refining facilities to seek waivers if they can prove compliance would cause them disproportionate financial hardship.

Reuters has reported that small facilities owned by oil majors such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp. have been among the facilities securing recent exemptions.

U.S. biofuel credits traded at 27 cents each on Friday following the announcement, up from 23.50 cents each on Thursday, traders said. However, the credits came off highs as the market sought clarity on the plan’s details.

— Reporting for Reuters by Humeyra Pamuk and Stephanie Kelly; writing by Richard Valdmanis.

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Clashes between farmers and the oil industry over biofuel policy have posed a challenge for Trump, who is counting on the support of both constituencies in next year’s presidential election.

U.S. farmers and ethanol producers have ramped up pressure on Trump over the past few weeks to quickly take steps to boost ethanol demand. The oil industry has struck back, saying such moves would increase costs for refiners and could cost manufacturing jobs.

“The Farmers are going to be so happy when they see what we are doing for Ethanol, not even including the E-15, year around, which is already done,” Trump said on Twitter. “It will be a giant package, get ready! At the same time I was able to save the small refineries from certain closing. Great for all!”

Trump did not offer details on what the “giant package” would contain. The E15 mentioned by Trump is a higher-ethanol blend of gasoline.

The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard requires refiners to blend biofuels like ethanol into their fuel, but allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant waivers to financially troubled small facilities.

The EPA announced this month a decision to grant 31 such waivers to refineries, a level the corn lobby called excessive, saying it would undermine biofuel demand.

Corn growers and ethanol producers met this week in Nebraska, with both groups voicing dissatisfaction with the Trump administration, in the first major gathering of industry leaders since the waiver announcement. They urged a policy proposal that would redistribute waived volumes from the exemptions going forward.

If implemented by the administration, the move would help reinvigorate wavering support from some in the sector for Trump, they said.

“What the association wants going forward is to put teeth back into the RFS,” said Kathy Bergren, director of public policy and renewable fuels for the National Corn Growers Association.

Kerry Knuth, chief executive of Knuth Farms in Mead, Nebraska, said he has at times been frustrated by the president and his administration’s actions. Knuth supported Trump in the 2016 election.

“There’s nothing we can do is the worst thing,” said Knuth, whose farm grows corn, soybeans and wheat. “Nobody even cares about us out here. It’s all about big industry.”

Trump last week directed Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, EPA chief Andrew Wheeler and White House advisers to come up with a solution that would boost biofuel demand in the wake of the EPA waiver decision. Among the proposals was to ramp up biofuel blending quotas slightly, but there has been disagreement over when to apply the increase, sources said.

Perdue said on Wednesday he also proposed strengthening U.S. infrastructure to allow more widespread use of E15. The Trump administration in June lifted a summertime ban on E15 use that had been imposed by the administration of Democratic former President Barack Obama to combat smog.

‘Misguided’

The oil industry, which dislikes the biofuel mandates because they cut into its market share, has said it would oppose any efforts to further bolster ethanol.

On Thursday, Chet Thompson, CEO of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the largest U.S. oil refining association, said any reallocation and raising of biofuel blending quotas would be “bad policy and unlawful.”

Thompson warned in a conference call that this would “raise the cost of compliance for refiners and raise the cost of fuel for consumers.” He dismissed farmers’ argument that waivers hurt biofuel demand, citing data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showing ethanol consumption for the first five months of 2019 at its highest since at least 2010. The mandate was put in place in 2005.

“We hope to be able to convince the president to change tack … He is being misinformed, he is being misguided by some of his closest advisers,” he said, adding that if persuasion fails, the industry will not refrain from court action.

On Wednesday, the chief executives of three major refiners — Valero Energy, Marathon Oil and Flint Hills Resources — wrote a letter to Trump, saying waivers did not cause a reduction in ethanol demand and they were also not the reason the biofuels industry was in dire straits.

“We urge you to prevent other changes to the RFS that would threaten the viability of our Nation’s refineries,” they said.

— Reporting for Reuters by David Alexander and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and Stephanie Kelly in South Sioux City, Nebraska; writing by Richard Valdmanis.

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Trump held a two-hour meeting on Monday with members of his cabinet after hearing blowback from farmers after the decision to grant exemptions from the nation’s biofuel laws to 31 refineries, two sources familiar with the discussions said.

It was unclear what actions Trump would be able to take to appease angry farmers. Reversing the waivers is not an option, the sources said, but the administration is trying to find other ways to boost ethanol demand.

Refiners are required to blend biofuels into the nation’s gasoline pool or buy credits to fund those who can. Corn farmers and ethanol producers lobbied to cut dramatically the number of exemptions from these rules, which have hit a record under the Trump administration.

Farmers bearing the brunt of Trump’s trade with China say his support of the hardship waivers has destroyed ethanol demand.

Refiners, especially smaller companies, have argued the biofuel laws are costly and overly burdensome. Trump’s expansion of the waiver program has saved the oil industry billions of dollars in compliance costs. On Tuesday, the EPA said in a statement that there was “zero evidence” that the refinery waivers have hurt demand for ethanol, which biofuels producers dispute.

The nation’s largest ethanol producer, POET, announced on Tuesday that it was cutting production at its plants and blamed the hardship waivers for the move.

“POET made strategic decisions to support President Trump’s goal of boosting the farm economy. However, these goals are contradicted by bailouts to oil companies. The result is pain for Midwest farmers and the reduction of hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity across Indiana,” said POET president Jeff Lautt.

Monday’s meeting included representatives from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the sources said. The White House declined to comment.

Prior to Trump’s term, just a few smaller refineries were granted relief from this requirement. Trump’s administration has vastly expanded those waivers, including granting relief to facilities run by oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Trump personally directed the EPA to grant the most recent waivers, sources told Reuters.

“Not only is the government not keeping its word, but it’s also screwing the farmer when we have low prices for (corn),” said Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, on a weekly call he holds to discuss agricultural issues.

The EPA granted the exemptions just as Democratic candidates hoping to challenge Trump in 2020 visited the Iowa State Fair, where they sought to position themselves as fighters for ethanol.

Iowa is the nation’s largest producer of corn and ethanol; President Barack Obama won the state handily twice before it swung heavily to Trump in 2016.

Kelly Nieuwenhuis, a third-generation corn and soybean farmer from O’Brien County in Iowa, a deeply Republican part of the state, said he voted for Trump in 2016 but his support for the president is waning.

“I have talked to a bunch of farmers in the past few days, and they are fed up. They are not going to vote for Elizabeth Warren, but they said they are not going to vote for Trump, so they will sit this out,” Nieuwenhuis said.

Trump delivered on a long-sought change lifting a summer ban on higher-ethanol blends of gasoline, but farmers and ethanol producers say the refining exemptions have negated any benefits from that move.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jarrett Renshaw and Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Chris Prentice.

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The powerful senator, who represents the largest ethanol-producing state in the country, told Iowa Public Television that low biofuel credit prices negated refiners’ complaints that they are suffering financial hardship and deserve waivers from complying with laws to encourage more biofuel use.

“They screwed us…when they issued 31 waivers,” Grassley told the broadcaster. “Compared to less than 10 waivers during all the Obama years…What’s really bad isn’t a waiver, it’s that it’s been granted to people who aren’t in hardship,” he said.

He added that he would take up the issue with President Donald Trump.

Reuters earlier reported that it was Trump who gave the green light to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to go ahead with the waiver decisions, a move that infuriated corn growers while pleasing the refining industry.

Sources told Reuters that Trump wanted the issue off his desk and gave Wheeler the go-ahead to announce the 31 exemptions out of 40 applications.

“The president has heard from all sides and in the end he has had enough of it,” one source familiar with knowledge of the matter said.

On Friday, EPA’s website showed two more petitions have been submitted, bringing the total number of applications to 42. EPA had approved 31 of them while denying six.

U.S. corn and oil industries are at loggerheads over EPA’s implementation of the Renewable Fuel Standard, a more than a decade-old federal policy that requires refineries to blend corn-based ethanol into their gasoline or buy credits from those that do.

But small facilities can secure exemptions from the program if they can prove to the EPA that complying would cause them financial hardship.

Since Trump took office, the EPA has more than quadrupled the number of waivers it has granted to refineries, including some operated by giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp., saving the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars, but enraging farmers who say the exemptions threaten demand for one of their staple products.

Refiners dismiss the argument, saying ethanol demand has not been affected.

Iowa is a swing state that Trump carried in the 2016 presidential election and is potentially crucial for his re-election efforts next year. Farmers in the state have also chafed under Trump’s trade war with China that has sapped demand for agriculture products.

Trump had ordered the revamp of the waiver program in June, after hearing from angry farmers during a trip to Iowa but nearly two months of inter-agency negotiations failed to change the outcome in corn growers’ favour.

— Humeyra Pamuk is a Reuters correspondent covering U.S. energy policy from Washington, D.C.

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“We’ll have information for you before the week ends,” he told reporters when asked about the aid, which is planned to be a total of about $16 billion to help farmers who have been hurt by the Chinese-U.S. trade dispute.

American soybean farmers, a key Trump constituency, have been among the hardest hit in the trade war. Soybeans are the most valuable U.S. farm export, and shipments to China dropped to a 16-year low in 2018.

A new aid program would be the second round of assistance for farmers, after the Department of Agriculture’s $12 billion plan last year to compensate for lower prices for farm goods and lost sales stemming from trade disputes with China and other nations.

The USDA has redesigned last year’s aid program of up to $12 billion based on feedback. The new package will have a single payment rate per county, calculated by the damages in that area, instead of a rate for every commodity across the nation.

Perdue said the minimal payment would be $15 per acre. “We’re anticipating right now three tranches; probably 50 pct … or minimum there of $15 an acre initially,” he said, adding that the second and the third tranches would be dependant on the market conditions.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at last month’s G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, to restart trade talks that stalled in May. Trump said at the time he would not impose new tariffs and U.S. officials said China agreed to make agricultural purchases. But Trump said on July 11 that China was not living up to promises to buy U.S. farm goods

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The EPA is charged with setting biofuel blending requirements for the refining industry as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a more than decade-old regulation that is aimed at helping farmers and reducing U.S. dependence on oil. It also provides waivers to small refining facilities that can prove compliance would cause them financial harm.

RFS and the waiver program, known as the Small Refinery Exemption (SRE) program, have increasingly been at the forefront of a heated political debate between the influential corn and oil lobbies, leaving President Donald Trump struggling to find a balancing act between the two important constituencies as he eyes re-election next year.

The issue has also gained more importance with many 2020 presidential hopefuls looking to secure support in key states such as Iowa, a major ethanol producing state.

Since Trump took office, the EPA has more than quadrupled the number of waivers it has granted, saving the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars but enraging another key constituency — corn growers — who claim the move threatens demand for their products.

EPA on Friday said it has proposed increasing the volume of biofuels refiners must blend into their fuel annually to 20.04 billion gallons in 2020, up from 19.92 billion gallons in 2019. The proposed mandate included 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels like ethanol, unchanged from 2019.

Reuters reported the proposed volumes ahead of the announcement in May, citing industry sources.

The EPA also proposed holding the biodiesel mandate at 2.43 billion gallons for 2021, unchanged from 2020. The agency sets biodiesel mandates a year in advance. Corn and ethanol producers have long urged the EPA to lift the figures to make up for the volumes waived under the small refinery hardship program.

The lack of it infuriated biofuel groups and Republican senators from corn state Iowa. “It’s unacceptable that EPA would set biofuel volumes below demand at a time when farmers, biofuels producers and agribusiness owners are forced to shed jobs and close plants,” influential Senator Chuck Grassley said.

“I urge President Trump to compel EPA to reverse course and keep his word to the forgotten Americans who have faithfully stood with him.”

American farmers have been among the most affected by Trump’s trade war with China, which once was a top export market for U.S. agricultural products – although the rural heartland has mostly remained loyal to him.

“EPA appears to be selling out to oil refiners — again — at the expense of rural America,” said Geoff Cooper, president and chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association.

“Until the EPA reins in the abuse of SREs (small refinery exemptions) and reallocates what has already been lost, billions of gallons of biofuel demand will be destroyed each year as SREs explode around our industry like fireworks above the Washington Monument on the Fourth of July,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.

Trump has also been increasingly annoyed with the waiver program, sources told Reuters, and ordered a review of it, after hearing from angry farmers during his Midwest tour last month.

The proposed mandate also includes 5.04 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, such as those made from agricultural wastes, up from 4.92 billion in 2019. As part of the advanced biofuel proposal, the agency set mandates for cellulosic fuel at 540 million gallons.

The deadline for EPA to issue the final rule on blending requirements is Nov. 30.

— Humeyra Pamuk is a Reuters correspondent covering U.S. energy policy from Washington, D.C.

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The announcement allows gasoline stations to sell blends containing up to 15 per cent corn-based ethanol, called E15, year-round, ending a summertime ban that President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency imposed in 2011 to reduce smog pollution.

The action is a win for the U.S. farm lobby, which has argued that the Obama-era restrictions on E15 hurt growers by limiting demand for corn-based fuel, without providing tangible air quality benefits. Recent research has concluded there is little difference in smog risk between E15 and E10.

“We estimate this one change will generate over a billion new gallons of ethanol demand in the next five years,” said Emily Skor, chief executive of biofuel trade group Growth Energy, adding it could also boost the market for U.S. grain by some two billion bushels over time.

The decision marks a setback for the oil industry, which views biofuels as competition for its petroleum-based fuels and has threatened to sue.

The American Petroleum Institute, which represents the U.S. oil industry, has repeatedly said the administration lacks the authority to unilaterally lift the ban on E15 and that such a move should require an act of Congress.

U.S. President Donald Trump has struggled to please both Big Oil and Big Agriculture, two critical constituencies in his reelection effort that have frequently clashed over biofuels.

In a concession to the oil industry, the EPA also unveiled a plan to reduce market speculation for biofuel blending credits that some refiners must buy to comply with U.S. biofuels regulations — an effort to reduce their costs.

But the agency’s plan omitted several elements that the oil industry had been seeking.

— Reporting for Reuters by Humeyra Pamuk and Jarrett Renshaw.

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The package, the bulk of which will be spent on direct payments, surprised growers and traders who had expected to learn separate payment rates for soybeans, hogs, corn and other crops in the Department of Agriculture (USDA) briefing.

Many farm groups welcomed the move, but called for a trade deal with China as soon as possible. Some Democrats have slammed the plan, calling it a ‘band-aid’ and said the county-based payment system could leave some farmers with reduced aid.

Farmers, a key constituency that helped carry U.S. President Donald Trump to his 2016 electoral win, have been among the hardest hit from a trade dispute with China, once a destination for more than 60 per cent of U.S. soybean exports.

“The farmers have been attacked by China,” Trump said in a press conference about the aid package. “But the $16 billion of funds will… make clear that no country has veto on America’s economic and national security,” he said.

The trade dispute, which escalated this month after Washington and Beijing hiked tariffs on imports of each other’s goods, has left U.S. farmers sitting on record volumes of soybeans with China halting purchases.

USDA officials said on Thursday they will roll out $14.5 billion in direct payments in three separate tranches with the first one planned for late July.

“The package we are announcing today ensures that farmers will not bear the brunt of those trade practices by China or any other nations,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said. “While farmers would tell you they’d rather have trade not aid, without the trade… they’re going to need some support.”

China, the world’s top soybean importer, curbed purchases of U.S. soy last year when Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting China to retaliate with tariffs on U.S. soy, pork, corn and other products.

An imminent trade deal between Washington and Beijing seems unlikely as the trade tensions between the world’s top two economies rose after U.S. placed China’s Huawei Technologies on a trade blacklist last week, triggering sharp protest from China.

Perdue also said the second and third tranches, with exact amounts yet to be decided, will be dependant on the progress in the trade talks and whether the U.S. will get a deal with China. The total package also includes $1.4 billion of support through food purchases and $100 million allocated to development of foreign markets.

Planting decisions

Perdue said USDA has redesigned last year’s aid program of up to $12 billion based on feedback. The new package therefore will have a single payment rate per county, calculated by the damages in that area, instead of a rate for every commodity across the nation.

“Those per acre payments are not dependent on which of those crops are planted in 2019, and therefore will not distort planting decisions,” USDA said in a statement.

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures turned lower and soybean futures extended earlier losses after the announcement.

The county-based mechanism for the aid payments have triggered a heated debate on whether it would impact planting decisions. Some analysts said the trade aid package could encourage farmers to try to seed their crops in order to qualify for the relief despite overly wet fields that have stalled planting this spring.

Jim Hefner, an Ohio farmer who has not been able to start planting due to heavy rain, said the plan could cause him to alter his initial acreage plans, however.

“I guess we would make more of an effort to get something planted,” Hefner said. “We may forgo corn and plant soybeans.”

Some farmers remain skeptical.

Dan Henebry, a corn and soybean farmer in Buffalo, Illinois, said the payments are directed at rural areas that helped propel Trump into office. Henebry, who voted for a third-party candidate in 2016, said he wants the president to end the trade war with China.

“If we solve the issue, we wouldn’t need this,” he said about the aid package.

— Reporting for Reuters by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Susan Heavey and Tom Polansek, Mark Weinraub, P.J. Huffstutter, Karl Plume in Chicago.

What’s in the aid package?

MarketsFarm — Producers of most major crops in the U.S. — including the big-three of soybeans, wheat and corn — will be eligible for direct payments totaling $14.5 billion under the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) for 2019.

Payment will be based on a single county rate multiplied by a farm’s total plantings to those crops in aggregate in 2019. Those per-acre payments are not dependent on which of those crops are planted in 2019, and therefore will not distort planting decisions, according to the USDA. Payment rates were not released.

Dairy producers will receive a per-hundredweight payment on production history and hog producers will receive a payment based on hog and pig inventory for a later-specified time frame.

Tree nut producers, fresh sweet cherry producers, cranberry producers, and fresh grape producers will receive a payment based on 2019 acres of production.

A US$1.4 billion Food Purchase and Distribution Program (FPDP) will operate through the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to purchase surplus commodities affected by trade retaliation such as fruits, vegetables, some processed foods, beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and milk for distribution by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to food banks, schools, and other outlets serving low-income individuals.

Another $100 million will be issued through the Agricultural Trade Promotion Program (ATP) administered by the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) to assist in developing new export markets on behalf of producers.

Further details regarding eligibility and payment rates are to be released at a later date.

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