U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue this past week extended the deadline for agricultural producers to apply for payments under the Market Facilitation Program as provided by the trade mitigation program administered by the USDA. The original deadline had been Jan. 15, but farmers have been unable to apply for the program since the lapse in federal funding caused the closure of USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices on Dec. 28. “Using existing funds, we were able to keep FSA offices open as long as possible, but unfortunately had to close them when funding ran out,” Perdue said in a statement. “We ...