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| Specialty crop farmers don't grow hundreds of acres of one type of plant. (Photo by Zoe Richardson, Unsplash) |
"Small-scale fruit and vegetable farmers are skipping out on federal farm aid, citing onerous reporting requirements they say are not compatible with their farms and may not substantially pay off," reports Rebekah Alvey of Civil Eats.
Although the USDA let smaller-scale farmers know they had until March 13 to complete their acreage reports to apply for assistance, the agency did not inform them when and how the aid would be distributed. Alvey explains, "Without knowing the potential benefits of the assistance, many specialty-crop farmers decided not to submit an acreage report, disqualifying them from the aid."
The current USDA acreage reporting forms are geared toward commodity row-crop farmers, leaving many specialty farmers unsure how to meet the requirements. Minnesota-based farmer Sara George told Civil Eats, "If you have kale, you have to do acreage reporting of your kale. I don’t plant an acre of kale, I plant two rows of kale.”
An average corn farmer is likely to plant thousands of acres, which is far different from the "small, diversified specialty-crop operations [that] grow a range of crops, on a fraction of an acre of land, and sell to a variety of sources," Alvey explains. "Under those conditions, a detailed crop report can be difficult to put together."
Specialty farmers who chose to apply for the ASCF program were told to work with their local Farm Service Agency to resolve reporting questions, but getting help from the FSA proved difficult for some. "George reached out to [her] local FSA offices with questions about the forms," Alvey reports. "But staff seem to have limited information as well and are also new to filing these reports for specialty crops."
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