Oct 7, 2025Aid efforts, trade talks soldier on amid government shutdown
The Specialty Crop Farm Bill Alliance (SCFBA) urged the inclusion of specialty crop aid in any emergency economic relief for the U.S. agricultural industry as aid efforts and trade talks continue despite the government shutdown.
A letter sent Oct. 6 to President Donald Trump highlighted the need for targeted assistance for fruit, vegetable, tree nut and landscape plant growers and cited the successful implementation of pandemic-related relief measures as a possible framework for future support.
“From Capitol Hill as well as from the administration, there is a great deal of focus on the program crops, but the need is much greater than that,” Kam Quarles, SCFBA co-chair and National Potato Council CEO, told Great American Media Services. “Specialty crops are fully 50% of everything that’s grown in the United States that goes for food consumption.”
Program crops — large-volume commodity crops such as corn or wheat — are eligible for direct government payments, while support for specialty crops typically comes in the form of federal investments in research, promotion programs, crop insurance and disaster assistance.
Quarles said it’s important to consider the full scope of the economic crisis facing U.S. growers instead of defaulting to decades-old models of only providing assistance directly to program crops.
“You can see how the program crops are doing economically very easily on a second-by-second basis because they have a futures market underpinning all of those commodities,” Quarles said. “Specialty crops don’t have that type of data. When you’re looking at 300 specialty crops, the vast majority have nothing approaching (that). When I walk into offices on Capitol Hill, a whiteboard will say the price of wheat is this, the price of corn is this. We don’t have that for potatoes or citrus or strawberries.”
USDA’s Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops (MASC), announced in December 2024, authorized Community Credit Corporation funds to help specialty crop growers and is an example of how such aid could work again, Quarles said.
“What was achieved in COVID (relief) and then with the MASC payments in July was a really landmark effort that finally included specialty crops in direct-payment disaster relief payments,” he said. “We’re trying to convince the administration to just use those models. (They) were very simple and it solved all of those hurdles that had prevented specialty crops from participating in the past. We just want them to basically rinse and repeat, do it again.”
The SCFBA letter read in part: “To ensure that we continue to have a safe and abundant supply of the fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and landscape plants grown here in the United States, we ask that you provide emergency economic assistance uniquely tailored to the needs of specialty crop growers at the earliest opportunity.”
SCFBA is also co-chaired by International Fresh Produce Association CEO Cathy Burns; Mike Joyner, president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association; and Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers.
USDA shutdown plan
UDSA’s shutdown plan calls for furloughing more than 42,000 employees, or almost half its current workforce. That includes 95% of National Institute of Food and Agriculture workers, 17% of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service employees and 85% of Foreign Agricultural Service staff.
Operations that will cease during the shutdown include payment processing, disaster assistance processing, technical assistance, contracts and agreements not related to exempted programs, financial management beyond funds management, regulatory work and travel.
USDA will continue operations including certain farm loan processing items, certain natural resource and conservation programs, core nutrition safety net programs, essential food safety operations (inspections and laboratory work), responding to and preparing for wildland fires, activities supported by user fees (including grading, assessment, inspection, import and export), and animal and plant health emergency programs.
The shutdown is likely to affect any emergency relief authorized for U.S. growers.
“The processing of all of these payments is going to be impacted if the government stays shut down. There’s no way around that,” Quarles said. “As I understand it, Congress is going to have to work with the administration to provide them the authority to utilize some of these mechanisms for disaster relief payment purposes.
“The government shutdown has got to get dealt with before any of these machines start to run again.”
