The Economy and the USDA

The Economy and the USDA. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is intended to provide a stimulus to the U.S. economy in the wake of the downtown. The Act includes federal tax cuts, expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions, and domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure, including the energy sector. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced on Monday how the USDA is beginning to implement its part beginning with young workers.

VILSACK: The youth unemployment rate in America today is roughly 21 percent. We're going to immediately put 1,500 young people to work to better maintaining our forests, which over time will also improve their health. We're not going to stop there. Additional resources are going to go into single family housing. Approximately $1.1 billion in the form of loan guarantees and direct loans are going to be used to address a significant backlog that has occurred. Roughly 10,000 rural homeowners are going to be helped and assisted. This is going to create 5,000 construction jobs as we build new homes and refinance purchases.

Vilsack says that the Flood Plain Easement Program sign up with NRCS runs now through March 27 and help is on the way for farmers getting started.

VILSACK: We're also going to provide additional money for direct farm loans: $145 million is being released in the next week. This is going to help a little over 2,000 farmers provide the operating capital they need to get their operations started. And 50 percent of these farmers will be beginning farmers; another 10 percent will be socially disadvantaged farmers.

He says that other announcements last week we just the beginning.

VILSACK: These resources are in addition to the announcement last week of $100 million being made available for School Lunch Program equipment purchases as well as additional resources that are going to play in maintaining and better improving USDA facilities around the country. This will also create construction jobs, which will impact and affect communities throughout America, including rural America.

And Vilsack says there is still work to be done on the Farm Bill.

VILSACK: In short, with the announcements today we begin the process of putting USDA money to work. We begin putting America back to work, which is consistent with the President's direction. We send a strong message that USDA is going to be very active and very aggressive in putting these resources to work. This will be, of course, in addition to accelerating the implementation of the Energy title of the Farm Bill, working over the course of the next couple of months to put the Conservation Security Program into play and making sure that the safety net is available for farmers.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.