Cover photo for Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2

Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 (CFAP2)

Farm Service Agency

Closed October 12, 2021


Update as of August 24th, 2021: USDA has updated the application to allow Contract Producers and Sales-based Commodity producers qualify based on their 2018 sales instead of 2019, if the former is more representative of their normal operations. See Terms section below.

Has your operation been directly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic? USDA is implementing updates to the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program for producers of agricultural commodities marketed in 2020 who faced market disruptions due to COVID-19. This is part of a larger initiative to improve USDA pandemic assistance to producers.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced an expansion of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) on March 24, 2021. This is part of a larger effort to reach a greater share of farming operations and improve USDA pandemic assistance. FSA has committed at least $2.5 million to establish partnerships and direct outreach efforts intended to improve outreach for CFAP 2 and will cooperate with grassroots organizations with strong connections to socially disadvantaged communities to ensure they are informed and aware of the application process. CFAP updates include reopening of Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 (CFAP 2), additional payments for eligible cattle and row crop producers, and the processing of payments for certain applications filed as part of CFAP Additional Assistance.



Eligibility

Any individual or legal entity who shares in the risk of producing a commodity may apply for CFAP 2.

Producers must be in the business of farming at the time of submitting their application to be eligible. 

Commodities grown under a contract in which the grower has ownership and production risk are eligible for CFAP 2.

Producers can apply for assistance for only commercially produced commodities.

To be eligible for payments, a person or legal entity must have an average adjusted gross income of less than $900,000 for tax years 2016, 2017, and 2018. However, if 75 percent of their adjusted gross income comes from farming, ranching, or forestry-related activities, the AGI limit of $900,000 does not apply and the person or legal entity is eligible to receive CFAP 2 payments up to the applicable payment limitation.

Persons and legal entities also must:

  • Comply with the provisions of the "Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation" regulations, often called the conservation compliance provisions; and

  • Not have a controlled substance violation.

Additionally:

  • If a person is not a US Citizen or Resident Alien (possessing an I-551 "Green Card"), then that person must provide a significant contribution of capital, land, and active personal labor to be eligible for CFAP 2.

  • If a legal entity has more than 10 percent ownership held by persons who are not a US Citizen or Resident Alien, then that entity is eligible for payment only if each foreign person in the entity makes a significant contribution of labor to the farming operation. If the foreign person(s) does not make a significant contribution of active personal labor to the farming operation, the legal entity's payment is reduced by the pro-rata ownership interest held by the foreign person(s).

Full list of eligible commodities can be found here.

Commodities not eligible for CFAP 2 include:

  • Hay, except alfalfa, and crops intended for grazing are ineligible for CFAP 2.

  • All equine, breeding stock, companion or comfort animals, pets, and animals raised for hunting or game purposes.

  • Birdsfoot and trefoil, clover, cover crop, fallow, forage soybeans, forage sorghum, gardens (commercial and home), grass, kochia (prostrata), lespedeza, milkweed, mixed forage, pelts (excluding mink), perennial peanuts, pollinators, sunn hemp, vetch, and seed of ineligible crops.


Terms

Assistance for Contract Producers 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, provides up to $1 billion for payments to contract producers of eligible livestock and poultry for revenue losses from Jan. 1, 2020, through Dec. 27, 2020. Contract producers of broilers, pullets, layers, chicken eggs, turkeys, hogs and pigs, ducks, geese, pheasants and quail may be eligible for assistance. This update includes eligible breeding stock and eggs of all eligible poultry types produced under contract.    

Contract producers can elect to use eligible revenue from the period of Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 27, 2018, or the same date range in 2019 if it is more representative. The difference in revenue is then multiplied by 80% to determine a final payment. Payments to contract producers may be factored if total calculated payments exceed the available funding and will be made after the application period closes.

Additional flexibilities have been added to account for increases to operation size in 2020 and situations where a contract producer did not have a full period of revenue from Jan. 1 to Dec. 27 for either 2018 or 2019. Assistance is also available to new contract producers who began their farming operation in 2020

**Updates for Sales-Based Commodities  **

USDA is amending the CFAP 2 payment calculation for sales-based commodities, which are primarily comprised of by specialty crops, to allow producers to substitute 2018 sales for 2019 sales. Previously, payments for producers of sales-based commodities were based only on 2019 sales, with 2019 used as an approximation of the amount the producer would have expected to market in 2020. Giving producers the option to substitute 2018 sales for this approximation, including 2018 crop insurance indemnities and 2018 crop year Noninsured Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) and Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+) payments, provides additional flexibility to producers of sales-based commodities who had reduced sales in 2019.

Grass seed has also been added as an eligible sales commodity for CFAP 2. A complete list of all eligible sales-based commodities can be found at farmers.gov/cfap2/commodities. Producers of sales-based commodities can modify existing applications. 


Application Instructions





Details

Release Date

April 5, 2021

Deadline

October 12, 2021

Financial Instrument

Grant

Maximum Award Amount

$750,000

Total Program Funding

$14,000,000,000


Updated June 3, 2022

Image Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture

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