A $220 million disaster assistance program for small farms is beginning to break through a 16-month delay at the Department of Agriculture, in the latest reflection of holes in the nation’s farm safety net.
More than a year after the block grant program appeared in a spending bill in Congress, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said last week that a big chunk of the funding — $53 million for Connecticut — is about to flow.
“We’re moving on that,” Rollins told Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, “I think we are at the finish line for Connecticut, after 30 meetings and a lot of back and forth.”
The USDA’s delay in kicking off the Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant program has producers in New England, Alaska and Hawaii waiting for help to bounce back from a variety of weather-related losses. Those are the eligible states, based on the law’s fine print that made money available strictly to states with fewer than 8,000 farms and no more than $250 million in farm income, among other limits.
