More On Specialty Crop Announcement

More On Specialty Crop Announcement. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

On Monday, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced 2 different programs that would help specialty crop producers including many tree fruit producers here in the northwest. The programs though are a part of the 2008 Farm Bill.

VILSACK: CRP is obviously frozen at this time in terms of new contracts. Export assistance is reduced. The beginning farmer/rancher development program are not in a position to provide any additional assistance along with, as I said, the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and the Specialty Crop Research Initiative. So these are some of the casualties of Congressional inaction and it’s unfortunate but hopefully when Congress returns after the election they will focus on getting this 5-year Food, Farms and Jobs bill done starting with the House of Representatives completing its work.

Of course without action by Congress these programs will all go away and in fact there may be other changes made.

VILSACK: In terms of what happens at USDA it obviously impacts our ability to administer programs. For example, we are not in a position to take any new signees in CRP even though there may be interest out there whether it’s on a general signup or continuous signup program. We can continue to administer the existing contracts but we can’t enter into any new contracts. We’re somewhat limited on CSP. We still have some resource that can be used but that resource could be used up fairly quickly.

The announced grants will support America's specialty crops producers, who provide the fruits, vegetables, nuts and other nutritious foods.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.