After a week of anticipation, yesterday USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that the $12 billion trade mitigation package that was expected today will instead be released on Monday. From his comments over the past month, the following is known:

Payments to commodity producers will total $7-9 billion. Trade promotion funding will be about $200 million. The remaining funds will go to commodity and food purchases for donations to food banks and other outlets, which simple arithmetic indicates will be somewhere between $2.8 and $4.8 billion.

Based on the above, the third-listed allocation has the biggest potential short-term market impact. Consider the total value of potential food purchases and the effect of the distribution of those...