By Clint Thompson
CFAP 2 remains an option for vegetable and specialty crop producers impacted by COVID-19. Growers in Florida, Georgia and Alabama can take advantage of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program which is designed to aid producers who faced market disruptions because of the pandemic.
“This is something that is in response to the pandemic that we’re facing and the challenges in terms of marketing products during 2020. Pretty much all producers of all different commodities, whether it be your traditional row crops, livestock, specialty livestock, horticulture, fruit and vegetable producers, tree nuts, all of it; everybody was affected in some fashion,” said Adam Rabinowitz, Assistant Professor and Extension Economist at Auburn University. “This is an opportunity that the USDA is providing to provide assistance to those producers based on either planted acres or sales during the prior year, 2019, to try to help get through these difficult times.”
What’s Eligible?
More than 230 fruit, vegetable, horticulture and tree nut commodities are eligible for CFAP 2 along with honey, maple sap and turfgrass sod. Visit farmers.gov/cfap2/specialty for a full list of eligible commodities and more information on CFAP 2 eligibility and payment details related to these commodities.
The USDA reopened CFAP 2 for all eligible producers beginning April 5.
“Evidently there were a number of producers who didn’t take advantage of this back in the fall. As a result, the USDA wanted to make sure that the program was opened again, and producers could enroll. Right now, there’s no deadline but the application period is reopened, and there were some expansions to the program, too,” Rabinowitz said.
CFAP 2 payments will be made in three categories of commodities – Price Trigger Commodities, Flat-Rate Crops and Sales Commodities. Vegetables and specialty crops are included in the Sales Commodities group.
“Compared to the first one, this one does include a lot more commodities. There were even some adjustments that were made for those who might have received disaster payments during 2019, in particular, if they were a sales commodity payment eligible producer. The amount that was paid in terms of indemnities or through different insurance products basically, gets added to the amount of sales that became eligible for payments under CFAP 2,” Rabinowitz said.
He added that producers who did not include this information initially can go back now and modify their application to include those indemnity payments.