|
Last week, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture (CTDoAg) released an update on the Farm Recovery and Support Grant (FRS). Many farmers may have received an email from DoAg as the department works through administering the disaster supplemental funding bill that created the FRS Grant. This program makes available $220 million to eligible states “to provide compensation to producers for necessary expenses related to crop, timber, and livestock losses, including on-farm infrastructure, as a consequence of any weather event in 2023 and 2024 that a state, in its sole discretion, determines warrants relief.”
CT DoAg received reported losses of $72,333,283. This number is a combination of the 210 responses in January 2025 totaling $50,591,373.53, plus those who responded to the surveys in 2023 and 2024 who based on email addresses didn’t respond in January.
On January 22, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture submitted a request of $83,979,000 to USDA which includes:
- Compensation to farms for weather-related losses in 2023 and 2024
- $10 million to invest in resiliency projects on individual farms
- 2% administration fee
DoAg has been working to advance the program through the following activities:
- Led an in-person brainstorming workshop with industry service providers, partners, and non-profits to discuss and evaluate possible distribution models to administer the FRS Grant.
- Continued to have ongoing discussions among the New England states, federal delegation, and USDA.
- To date, Connecticut has not received confirmation of the allocation from this federal funding opportunity. The total request from all eligible states is unknown, but the New England states combined requested more than $320 million.
|
