The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has dropped plans to reduce the final tobacco buyout payment by 7.2 per cent and will pay the full amount, according to US Senator Mitch McConnell.

USDA last year said the final payment to quota holders under the 2004 tobacco buyout would be reduced due to budget sequestration. However McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky and leader of Senate Republicans, said he made USDA aware of a Budget Control Act provision that would allow tobacco quota holders to receive full payment. Quota holders will receive payment by the end of fiscal year 2015, McConnell's office said.
Under the Tobacco Transition Payment Program, holders of tobacco quotas were promised payments through 2014 to compensate for the introduction from 2005 of a free market system without government controls and price support loans.