Thanks, Rick. I will try to answer that.
From the perspective of what the pork industry needs, I think we have to take a serious look at our industry from the point of view that not all sectors are hurting.
We have an integrated sector that's doing very, very well. It's the independent producer that is based on the Chicago price or the U.S. price that is driven.
I think we as an industry truly recognize the value of AgriStability and we'd like to be there, but we need some changes within the program to make it more responsive and to give us a better idea of how it will support us. Rick already talked to you about ASF. If we actually had a crisis with African swine fever, we have no clue on how that would support the industry.
For the short term, I think what we need to do is to loosen the rules around AgriStability and turn it into maybe, as much as everybody hates the term, an “ad hoc” program. At the end of the day, there need to be safeguards in AgriStability to make sure that producers who need the money get the money and that producers who don't will end up having to pay it back or not receive it to start with.
The program is very cumbersome to try to use to make an interim claim. At this point, I know the rules have changed to 75%. I've talked to some producers and they have spent valuable time with their accountants even to put in an interim claim and they have no clue as to how they're going to handle it.
The 70% on 70% is a real detriment, because when your farm actually gets to the point of triggering that, you're pretty much on life support and you have no time to wait.
That's exactly where we have found ourselves with all the market disruptions we've had in the last year, and now COVID-19 is the final straw.