During a Champaign County, Illinois listening session U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue confirmed the second round of Market Facilitation Payments for farmers will be coming in December. Secretary Perdue says his agency unsuccessfully looked for ways to vary the payments from region to region based on the impact of Chinese imposed tariffs. There had been some speculation, for instance, farmers in the Dakota’s might end up with bigger payments because soybean exports out the PNW to China have stopped. But he says that while they looked at that issue early, they could not find a way to reasonable get it done.As for next year, Perdue says farmers should not expect to receive more payments to compensate them for losses due to the Trump Administration’s trade policy goals. Perdue also told the gathered farmers in Illinois, more than once that they should look to diversify their operations in order to avoid the market disruptions caused by the Trump Administration’s rebalancing of trade.