Monday, June 29, 2020

U.S. packers get a boost

The Federal Reserve in the United States has offered to help large-scale meat-packing companies.

It’s yet another subsidy in the United States that has no similar help available to Canadians competing for the same markets. Farmers in the U.S. are getting more than $30 billion in trade-related and COVID-19 related subsidies while the main help for Canadian farmers is an offer of loans.

Cargill, Conagra, Hormel Foods, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods are among the roughly 750 beneficiaries on the central bank’s fund of almost $7 billion to buy corporate bonds.

The result of this help is lower interest rates for borrowed money. 

The Federal Reserve said Sunday that so far it has purchased about $429 million of corporate bonds and that Campbell Soup was included.

Of course, in the U.S. farmers overwhelmingly voted for Trump and in Canada not many voted for Trudeau.