Here's the USDA press release on the programs to offset the impacts of Trump's trade war on farmers.
Some things strike me, though my information is 20 years out of date.
The MFP (administered by FSA) covers pork and milk, as well as the commodities: cotton, corn, wheat, soybeans, and sorghum (not sure if ELS cotton is covered); oats, rice, and barley are not. While FSA is used to collecting production data for the commodities, it has less experience with pork and milk.
Applications for the "first payment period" starts Sept. 4 (actually presumably the later of Sept 4 and the completion of harvest for the commodities), but it's not clear to me what the payment period means--presumably the 2018 harvest for the commodities, while pork and milk are based on snapshot data as of August 1 and June 1, respectively.
Payment's on 50 percent of actual production, with the second payment period beginning Dec. 2018 to cover the remaining 50 percent. Presumably that will be announced if there's no end to the war or farm prices don't bounce back.
[Addition: not clear whether application is on a farm basis, or the entire farming operation. Possibly could be either, but the entire operation would limit the possibility of moving production evidence from one farm to another.]
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