USDA is seeking public comment by March 31 on deploying aid to the U.S. food industry that was contained in the December COVID aid plan.
The Ag Marketing Service will also hold a listening session March 19 via Zoom on the topic. The December aid plan would provide no less than $1.5 billion to purchase food and agricultural products, including seafood, fresh produce, dairy, and meat products, to distribute to individuals in need, including through delivery to nonprofit organizations that can receive, store, and distribute food items, and for grants and loans to small or midsized food processors or distributors, seafood processing facilities and processing vessels, farmers markets, producers, or other organizations to respond to coronavirus, including for measures to protect workers against COVID–19.
The agency said it was specifically seeking feedback from “smaller businesses, new and beginning farmers and ranchers, socially disadvantaged producers, veteran producers, and underserved communities, and/or organizations representing these entities.”
The agency is also seeking feedback by March 31 on a “food purchase and distribution program intended to provide additional aid to nonprofits serving Americans in need of nutrition assistance.” The program, “If implemented… will serve as a successor to the temporary food box purchase program created in April 2020 in response to the rapidly developing crisis within the food supply chain and increased joblessness due to COVID-19.” The agency said while the Food Box program did work well in some areas, there were issues in others.
A March 22 listening session via Zoom is planned for that effort. It is still fully expected that some form of the Food Box program will continue in the future even as it could be modified and potentially renamed