USDA Announces Major Program Improvements, Progress, and Investments to Benefit American Farmers, Ranchers, and Producers
Review the full press release HERE.
SAN JUAN, P.R., January 9, 2023 — Today, at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual convention, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced several major developments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will benefit farmers, ranchers and producers across the nation.
“At USDA, our goal is to provide all farmers, including new and underserved producers, with the opportunity to receive the assistance they need to continue farming, to build and maintain their competitive-edge, and to access more, new, and better markets,” said Vilsack, who spoke at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual convention today. “Working together we can ensure American agriculture is as resilient as ever and will do so by implementing a holistic approach to emergency assistance, by lowering input costs through investments in domestic fertilizer production, and by promoting competition in agricultural markets.”
New Programs to fill gaps in 2020/2021 Natural Disaster Assistance (Emergency Relief Program (ERP) Phase 2) and 2020 Pandemic Assistance (Pandemic Assistance Revenue Program (PARP)
USDA is announcing two new programs that wrap-up and fill remaining gaps in previous natural disaster and pandemic assistance. To be eligible for ERP Phase Two, producers must have suffered a decrease in allowable gross revenue in 2020 or 2021 due to necessary expenses related to losses of eligible crops from a qualifying natural disaster event. Assistance will be primarily to producers of crops that were not covered by Federal Crop Insurance or NAP, since crops covered by Federal Crop Insurance and NAP were included in the assistance under ERP Phase One.
To be eligible for PARP, an agricultural producer must have been in the business of farming during at least part of the 2020 calendar year and had a 15% or greater decrease in allowable gross revenue for the 2020 calendar year, as compared to a baseline year.
The ERP Phase 2 and PARP application period is open from January 23, 2023, through June 2, 2023. For more information, producers should contact their local USDA service center or reference the ERP Phase 2 fact sheet, PARP fact sheet, or the ERP Phase Two-PARP Comparison fact sheet.
Additional programs are discussed in the full press release.
Source: https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2023/01/09/usda-announces-major-program-improvements-progress-and-investments
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