The Agriculture Department has a lot of services, funding and tools for specialty crop farmers – including a new $100 million program to help producers sell their crops overseas – and the USDA wants to make sure that those farmers take advantage of them, Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small told reporters Thursday.
USDA has launched a new website to corral all of its specialty crop programs and help producers decide which are best for them under the banner of its Specialty Crops Competitiveness Initiative, or SCCI. At the same time, USDA is reaching out to farmers and farm groups to ask them how the government can do more.
The website will serve as “a comprehensive guide to all available USDA resources that are relevant to the specialty crops industry,” Torres Small said Thursday. “And the web page includes information on loans, grants, technical assistance, and much more.”
The Initiative, she said, “will raise awareness of which USDA services and resources are available to support the specialty crops industry. And by working with industry stakeholders, it also helps identify the gaps in those services. In standing up this initiative, USDA has conducted a department-wide audit of all of its current services and programs that support the specialty crops industry. And we've used that information as well as feedback from industry stakeholders to be better equipped to address gaps and service and to achieve goals of the initiatives and better meet the needs of industry.”
The effort, says the International Fresh Produce Association, is appreciated.
Rebeckah Adcock, vice president of government relations for IFPA, says the group “applauds this administration’s commitment to prioritizing the specialty crops industry at USDA. This type of whole-of-the-agency approach is long overdue to better address the challenges and opportunities the fresh produce industry faces daily as we strive to nourish the world with our products.”
Torres Small also on Thursday highlighted the fact that $100 million out of the $1.3 billion Commodity Credit Corporation-funded Regional Agricultural Promotion Program will be used “to address the unique needs of the specialty crop industry.”
Those funds, according to a USDA statement, will help those in the specialty crop industry that are looking to expand by exporting. The $100 million – an unnamed subsection of RAPP – will be dedicated to helping “through targeted technical assistance to overcome onerous trade barriers.”
Agricultural Marketing Service Administrator Bruce Summers, who was on the press call with Torres Small, said those funds will be used in a similar fashion to how the Foreign Agricultural Service operates its Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops program, which “funds projects that address sanitary, phytosanitary, and technical barriers that prohibit or threaten the export of U.S. specialty crops.”
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There will be differences in the $100 million CCC program and TASC, though, Summers said.
“They are similar, but they are different,” he said. “They’re not repetitive.”
Adcock says IFPA welcomes USDA’s help with overseas markets.
“We look forward to working hand in hand with USDA to build meaningful programs that further drive the industry forward and make our nutritious products even more competitive in global marketplace,” she said.
USDA on Thursday also announced a $70.2 million investment in specialty crop research. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture will run the Specialty Crop Research Initiative that “prioritizes projects that improve crop characteristics; manages threats from pests and diseases; improves production efficiency, profitability and technological innovation; and mitigates food safety hazards.”
The initial 21 research projects to be funded include an effort by the University of Michigan to “increase competitiveness and sustainability of the U.S. blueberry industry by developing methods to improve fruit quality and reduce crop loss” and a Pennsylvania State University project that will “focus on new pest and disease management strategies for mushroom farms."
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