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Tuesday, August 25, 2020

House Ag Chair Raises Questions on CFAP

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., is asking USDA to clarify its eligibility standards for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), writing USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in an August 21 letter.

Peterson said that he viewed the data used by USDA as only considering the earliest parts of the pandemic, missing the full extent of damage to different commodities. “Some would argue that the full agricultural market impact of the closure of schools, restaurants, catering, and agricultural processing facilities due to the COVID-19 public health crisis were not fully realized during the CFAP covered period, with losses for many commodities extending well into the second and third quarters of this year,” Peterson said.

He also raised questions about commodities that were not deemed eligible under CFAP. Hundreds of commodities were denied CFAP eligibility for “insufficient data” and “lack of information,” though it would seem that the “well documented shut-down of school meals, restaurants, and food service demand would have impacted those food crops, and the loss of export, landscape, and retail markets for the non-food crops (e.g., pima cotton) and livestock/poultry,” he wrote. “And, producers of processed food commodities (e.g., raisins) and aquaculture seem to have been completely excluded from the program.”