USDA’s $650 million COVID-related program falls short, NPC says
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it has allocated $650 million for the new Pandemic Response and Safety (PRS) Grant program to support agricultural stakeholders who haven’t yet received substantial federal financial assistance in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
The new program is funded by the pandemic assistance provided in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, according to the agency.
“The funding associated with USDA Pandemic Assistance is meant to serve as a bridge from disruptions associated with the pandemic to longer-term investments to help build back a better food system,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release. “Financial relief to these essential producers, distributors, processors and other small agricultural businesses is a critical to get our food system back on track.”
Limitations
The National Potato Council praised the intention of the new program but said PRS has limitations.
“Over the past few months, the National Potato Council and our partners in the agriculture industry have given feedback to USDA on the need to support those who incurred COVID-19 PPE and vaccination costs in the heavily-impacted specialty crop sector,” said Kam Quarles, CEO of the National Potato Council, said in a news release. “Although we appreciate the intention of today’s announcement and the release of these funds, unfortunately, certain limitations in the structure of the program will cause it to fall short of providing the necessary relief that the Administration and Congress intended."
Quarles said in the release that by limiting relief only to small entities, the program leaves out the vast majority of agricultural employers, particularly in the high-cost specialty crop industry, who incurred substantial expenses in protecting their workforce.
“COVID-19 made no distinction in its threat to farmworkers and other essential employees at small, medium or large farms,” Quarles said in the release. “Each of those workers required gear and access to vaccines to keep them safe, and the entities who provided it to them should be eligible for support.” Quarles said the relief program “draws a distinction when the virus did not.” In particular, he said the ‘annual sales’ limitation makes a large number of financially-stressed employers ineligible for relief for these essential and costly actions.
“Our advice to USDA has been to support the actions that kept farmworkers safe, regardless of the size of the entity providing them,” Quarles said. “The program announced today does not meet that equitable goal, but we intend to continue working with Congress and the Administration to achieve it in the future.”
Additional info
For the PRS grants, eligible entities are detailed in the Pandemic Response and Safety Grant Program forecast, USDA-AMS-TM-PRS-G-21-0011. Eligible entities should visit the PRS grant portal at usda-prs.grantsolutions.gov for complete information on the program, including how to obtain a free of charge DUNS Number from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) before applying for this program, the USDA said. On Sept. 23, USDA will issue another announcement indicating that entities may submit their applications through the grant portal; entities will need their DUNS number to submit an application.
Updated information regarding the PRS will be available on the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) website: www.ams.usda.gov.
