The future of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) is unclear as biofuels groups and pork producers are questioning when and if they’ll get paid. As USDA continues to divvy out the COVID-19 relief funds for agriculture, reports show that funding may be nearly gone.
Pro Farmer Washington Correspondent Jim Wiesemeyer says USDA’s COVID aid bucket is near empty, with sectors like biofuels and top-up payments for hog farmers still in question.
“Following a revamped COVID relief program announcement in March, USDA has committed $8.75 billion in assistance to farmers and ranchers, including $750 million for the dairy sector and up to $1 billion for contract growers of pigs and poultry,” reports Wiesemeyer “USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on July 13 an estimated $50 million to livestock and poultry producers forced to cull their animals when COVID-19 outbreaks temporarily slowed or shuttered slaughterhouses.”
Unfinished Business
Wiesemeyer says only a few items remain as unfinished business when it comes to COVID-19 relief for agriculture, including the $700 million for biofuels.
“In mid-June, the USDA earmarked $700 million for biofuel producers and said it would act in the next 60 days on ‘support to timber harvesters, biofuels, dairy farmers and processors, livestock farmers and contract growers of poultry, assistance for organic cost share and grants for PPE (personal protective equipment).’”
It’s not just biofuels. Wiesemeyer points out the recent top-up payments to hog farmers, which are calculated at $17 per head, are also left unpaid.
“That has been the subject of an intense quarrel among some in the U.S. hog sector, with a Canadian hog producer chastising the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) for not doing enough to get the payments announced,” says Wiesemeyer. “Vilsack recently said, ‘We’ll target future assistance, rather than top-up or across-the-board actions that don’t account for actual losses or payments that have already been received.’ Initially, USDA included a halt to the payouts via a regulatory freeze during the change in administrations. Farm-state lawmakers periodically urged USDA to make the payments Two House Republicans said this week, ‘Unfortunately, USDA has given no indication on if or when these payments will be made.’”
Wiesemeyer says calculations show $24.4 billion has been paid through the CFAP since May 2020, which is when payments began.
