Multi-billion dollar grant to help farmers and ranchers

COLUMBIA Mo. (KMIZ)

The USDA is set to provide billions of dollars of federal grant relief to farmers and ranchers hit hard by COVID-19 across the United States.

The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) will provide $19 billion of immediate relief support to farmers, ranchers and distributors.

Dustin Stanton, the co-owner and operator of Stanton Brothers, a farm in Centralia, said COVID-19 has set them back and grant funding would help.

"Some of our costs have gone up, just with the supply chains of other products even like a gardens and feed, being offset and messed up," Stanton said. "If there's a grant in place for funds we will use that to offset some of our both loss of income, but also the increased expenses that we've had."

The program will use the funding provided in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), to provide $16 billion to farmers and ranchers.

The USDA will also buy $3 billion in fresh produce, dairy, and meat. $100 million per month will go to fresh fruits and vegetables, $100 million per month in dairy products and $100 million per month in meat products which will go to food banks, faith based organizations and nonprofits helping feed Americans across the U.S.

Stanton said getting the economy going will start with agriculture. 

"I think overall that we do ask agriculture back on its feet, even with as much of a first-world economy as we have is still very agrarian, and it's kind of like a Jenga game, you really can't play the rest of the top of the Jenga puzzle if you don't have the bottom in place and agriculture is the bottom of our economy," said Stanton. "So hopefully this grant will get agricultural back where it needs to be both with production as well as agribusiness and suppliers, so that the rest of the economy could prosper."