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Shutdown impacts farmers and their advisors

An American Farm Bureau economist says the government shutdown has an impact on his job.

Danny Munch tells Brownfield government produced data is an important part of what he needs to give farmers vital information they use to make farm business decisions. “That trade data that hasn’t been updated. (and) Some of our regular USDA reports have not been released, so that makes it a little bit harder to do fast-paced analysis that gives us the intel we need to do legislative analysis, but also just track markets and keep farmers in the know with what’s going on.”

Munch says farmers need help, especially row crop farmers, and Congress and the Trump administration cannot move forward with an economic assistance package until Washington goes back to work. “A six to twelve month period can make or break a farm so, you know, even when we’re looking longer term at supporting our ag industry, it’s important to keep farmers out front.”

Munch says he hopes the shutdown ends soon so farmers can get the information and program support they deserve.