In response to the current covid-19 crisis, there aren’t many agricultural stakeholders who haven’t received any kind of federal financial assistance.
So, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced the published Requests for Applications (RFAs) for new grant programs – the Pandemic Response and Safety (PRS) Grant program and the Seafood Processors Pandemic Response and Safety Block Grant program.
These programs by USDA aims to help:
- Small businesses in certain commodity areas,
- Small scale specialty crop producers and processors
- Shellfish, aquaculture, and other select producers.
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Meat and other processors, distributors, farmers markets, seafood facilities, and processing vessels.
When making the announcement, USDA also released grant forecasts for the newly released programs.
These forecasts will help the potential applicants in determining their eligibility and make required preparations to apply for funding.
Pandemic assistance has invoked the consolidated appropriations act of 2021 to fund all these new programs. The funds available for the PRS grant is approx. $650 million and $50 million for SPRS.
