The double bond is an interesting phenomenon. One of the questions that came up last week was “Why?”
It was originally put in to guard against frivolous complaints. The guy might file a claim, but he would in fact owe the buyer for freight or other things. However, double does seem a bit high.
The problem with it, in the context of your question, is to look at what's happening. The farmer has harvested his crop. He has sold his crop and can't have his money. He's already out of pocket $50,000.
Now he has to go and find an organization in the United States that's recognized by the USDA, and this isn't a bail bond kind of thing. This is a cash bond. You have to find somebody who will give you essentially a cash bond equal to twice that. He's out of pocket $50,000, and now he has to find an asset of $100,000 that isn't already pledged to somebody else to get that cash. It just doesn't happen.
If you look at some of the statistics, and I won't go into the weeds here today, less than 1% of the claims filed with PACA from outside of the U.S. and Canada go formal.
It's not because, as the record says, they're resolved. Resolved just means a formal document was never filed. It means they couldn't afford to move forward.