Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue set a new deadline of February 14 for producers to apply for Trump tariff payments, while announcing on Tuesday that USDA’s so-called county offices will be open for many, but not all, services during the partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, concern rose that SNAP or school meal programs will run out of money if the month-old shutdown persists for weeks.
Some 9,700 Farm Service Agency employees will be called to work with the promise of eventual pay so that all of the agency’s offices can re-open on Thursday, said the USDA. They will handle a broad range of activities, mostly ongoing loans, disaster relief, crop supports and the Trump payments, officially named the Market Facilitation Program. The White House budget office, after a close-eyed review of USDA activities permitted during a shutdown, gave approval for USDA to call back furloughed workers.
From Thursday through February 8, FSA offices will be open Monday through Friday. After that, they will be open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. USDA employees will not take applications for farm ownership loans or several land stewardship programs, including the Conservation Reserve. “Programs managed by FSA that were re-authorized by the 2018 farm bill will be available at a later date yet to be determined,” said the USDA.
School food directors urged Congress and the White House to resolve the shutdown to avoid a lapse in funding for school meals. “School districts, especially those serving America’s neediest students, are simply not equipped to cover meal expenses without federal support,” said president Gay Anderson of the School Food Association. “Many of them lack reserve funds to continue serving students should federal funding lapse.”
When it announced a plan to issued SNAP benefits in advance for February, the USDA said child nutrition programs were funded through March. Perdue repeated that assurance on social media over the weekend.
“There’s understandable concern about child nutrition programs, but this needs to be clear: USDA’s child nutrition programs are funded quarterly and are fully funded through the end of March. Includes National School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Child & Adult Care Food programs,” tweeted Perdue.
An adverse effect of issuing SNAP benefits in advance for February is that 30 million recipients “could experience a gap…of more than 40 days” before they see March benefits, estimated the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “More than 4 million households, including 8 million people, could experience a gap of more than 50 days.” The longer-than-usual interval between benefits will strain food supplies for some households and mean higher demand for help from food pantries, said the think-tank.
More than 2,500 retailers nationwide are unable to sell food to SNAP recipients because they did not renew their licenses to participate in SNAP before the shutdown began, reported PBS NewsHour last week. The licenses must be reauthorized every five years. PBS NewsHour quoted a USDA official as saying a small percentage of stores were affected and, “These stores can take steps to update their status once funding in restored.”
According to USDA, more than 263,000 firms are authorized to make SNAP sales. Some 38,000 supermarkets and “super stores” handled 82 percent of the dollar volume. Some 38.6 million people were enrolled in SNAP at latest count.
The USDA announcement that all of its FSA offices would re-open coincided with the end of a three-day run in which half of the offices were open for a limited number of services, such as service of existing loans and issuance of IRA Form 1099s.
To see USDA’s announcement of FSA office schedules and the list of services that will be available, click here.