Approximately 2,100 U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency county offices on Oct. 23 resumed core operations during the government shutdown. The action is expected to help farmers access $3 billion worth of aid from existing programs.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) reported that Commodity Credit Corp. programs that fully resumed include:
- Agriculture Risk Coverage / Price Loss Coverage
- Marketing Assistance Loans
- Livestock Forage Disaster Program
- Livestock Indemnity Program
- Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish
- Tree Assistance Program
- Conservation Reserve Program
- Price Support Loans (sugar)
- Non-Insured Disaster Assistance Program Dairy Margin Coverage
GDA reported that intake-only programs that resumed include:
- Direct and Guaranteed Farm Loans
- Emergency Livestock Revenue Program (Wildfire & Flooding)
- Supplemental Disaster Relief Program Phase 1
- Emergency Conservation Program
- Emergency Forest Restoration Program
Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler J. Harper said the government shutdown “has left Georgia farm families without access to the most essential farm support services and done significant damage to our state’s No. 1 industry.”
Texas Farm Bureau reported that the reopened county Farm Service Agency offices will operate with limited staffing. This includes two paid county-office employees who will work five days per week to process payments and assist with farm-loan and commodity-program services.
Earlier this month in a letter, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) urged the Trump administration to address the economic strain facing farmers and ranchers.
“Across the country, farms are disappearing as families close the gates on the farms tended by their parents, grandparents and generations before them,” wrote AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “Every farm lost takes with it generations of knowledge, community leadership and the heartbeat of local economies: fewer kids in schools, fewer trucks at the grain elevator, fewer small businesses that keep rural towns alive. As those farms disappear, so too does America’s food independence: our ability to feed ourselves without relying on foreign supply chains.”
Sources: Georgia Department of Agriculture and Texas Farm Bureau
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