The USDA's Farm Service Agency has approved over $545 million in payments for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to farmers and agriculture workers in need of financial aid due to the coronavirus, according to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, as reported by the Sun Journal.
The agency, which started accepting applications May 26, received over 86,000 applications. There is $16 billion in funds earmarked for this cause.
The money was available to producers of agriculture products that had suffered a 5 percent or greater price decline due to the pandemic's economic destruction, and which face further complications for the near future due to supply chain problems, disruptions of shipping and other issues with the normal marketing process.
The applications will still be available through Aug. 28, 2020, the Sun Journal reports.
The way the process works is that, once approved, applicants will receive up to 80 percent of their total payment. The remaining 20 percent will be paid at a later date as funds remain available nationwide.
Those looking to apply can visit farmers.gov/cfap, and those in need of assistance can call the USDA at 877-508-8364, according to the news outlet. On the website, there is a calculator function that can help with sales and inventory records needed to identify payment amounts.
The coronavirus pandemic shifted food and farming preferences like it did to every other aspect of life, with a recent PYMNTS report detailing how big cities like New York City have seen a rise in activity at small farmers markets as people seek to avoid crowded grocery stores.
But meanwhile, more rural areas, due to the shuttering of restaurants for months that typically needed fresh foods, have had to discard items like milk when they had a surplus of it. And the nature of farming, in which cows need to be milked and fruit needs to be picked in a certain time window, isn't good for workers who have no option to work remotely. That could put more of them at risk of catching the virus, the report notes.
