Specialty crop growers can apply soon for financial assistance under a $1.625 billion program announced by the Agriculture Department Friday.
The total for the Assistance for Specialty Crops Farmers (ASCF) program is $625 million above the originally announced $1 billion. The department allocated $11 billion in the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program for row crop farmers.
Assistance will range from $25 to $650 per acre across four different tiers:
- Tier 1 ($650 per acre) includes eligible specialty crops with an average annual revenue of more than $10,000 per acre.
- Tier 2 ($225 per acre) includes eligible crops with an average annual revenue of more than $2,300 per acre and up to $10,000 per acre.
- Tier 3 ($65 per acre) includes eligible crops with an average annual revenue of up to $2,300 per acre.
- Tier 4 ($25 per acre) includes all types of beans and peas that were not eligible for the bridge assistance program.
The maximum any producer can receive is $250,000.
The payments are "in response to elevated input costs and market disruptions resulting from foreign competitors engaging in unfair trade practices that impeded specialty crop exports," according to USDA's press release.
Online enrollment begins Monday, June 1. Producers can apply at their Farm Service Agency offices starting June 8. The deadline to apply is Aug. 7. Detailed information is available on USDA’s website.
Eligible crops include fruits, vegetables and tree nuts as defined by USDA, American Farm Bureau Federation economist Daniel Munch notes. “Floriculture, nursery crops, herbs, hops and other horticultural commodities are not included,” according to his summary of the program.
Products grown using controlled environment agriculture are not eligible, except for mushrooms.
“This assistance is much needed as specialty crop farmers continue to navigate weak returns, elevated labor expenses, high borrowing costs and increasing import competition,” Munch says. “The final rule provides that clarity, but also highlights a broader challenge: specialty crop agriculture remains significantly harder to evaluate through traditional economic safety-net frameworks than most row crop sectors.”
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