Washington Post Explores Impact of Shutdown on Ag, Other Sectors of the Economy

The Washington Post explored how the partial federal government shutdown is affecting various sections of the economy, including agriculture, in a recent front page article. American Farm Bureau Federation Executive Vice President Dale Moore and a handful of his colleagues “privately outlined their worries about the freeze in USDA loans and federal subsidies with Purdue just before he took the podium Monday to address farmers and ranchers gathered in New Orleans for the Farm Bureau’s annual convention, according to John Newton, the Farm Bureau’s chief economist,” noted the Post. “Two days later, Purdue announced that 2,500 employees in the Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency were being summoned back—without pay—for three days to hundreds of local offices across the country to help farmers complete paperwork for loan applications, process existing loan payments and open mail to ‘identify priority items.’”