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Farmers and ranchers in seven additional Georgia counties are now available for assistance to address damage to working lands and livestock mortality because of Hurricane Michael through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
The southwest Georgia counties added to those eligible for this assistance are: Crisp, Grady, Lee, Mitchell, Terrell, Thomas and Worth. Including these counties, a series of special sign-ups for agricultural livestock mortality and carcass disposal is being conducted for 13 counties designated under the Individual Assistance Declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The first sign-up period ends October 26, 2018. A second sign-up period will end November 16, 2018.
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The American Pecan Council (APC) sends industry’s thoughts and prayers to those affected by Hurricane Michael. We have been in contact with USDA and FEMA to ensure that the APC remains in the loop so that we in turn can forward any assistance information to industry. USDA has posted an informational page that provides pertinent information which you may find useful: https://www.usda.gov/topics/disaster/storms. In the meantime, if you need any assistance, please call the Council office at (817) 916-0020.
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On August 27, 2018, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, announced details of actions the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would take to assist farmers in response to trade damage from unjustified retaliation. As part of those actions, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service announces the Food Purchase of up to $16,034,000 under the authority of Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Charter Act for distribution to various food nutrition assistance programs. Products to be procured include but are not limited to:
Click Here for Information on Product to be Procured
Please find attached documents addressing how to partake in USDA’s Food Purchase & Distribution Program.
You can also view vendor information on the AMS website at https://www.ams.usda.gov/se
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Commodity Procurement Program will provide domestic commodity vendors an interactive training webinar for the Web-Based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) System. A list of webinars, in addition to information on webinar registration, can be found at https://www.ams.usda.gov/co
Please note, applications for this program are due by November 2, 2018, or until funding is exhausted.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly or call the APC office at (817) 916-0020.
Application Instructions to Become an Approved Vendor
Opportunities to Sell to USDA
A memorandum from Alexander Ott, Executive Director, was sent to the American Pecan Council Board of Directors and Industry regarding the increase on China tariffs.
“Reports show that U.S. Customs will begin collecting an additional 25 percent on a host of Chinese goods. As a result, China has indicated that they are ready to implement their tariffs on U.S. goods. A list of the potential items was released by China last month. Several nut products were on the list, including pecans. Once fully implemented, U.S. pecans will have a 47% tariff when exporting to China. In addition, China announced tariff reductions for Asia-Pacific Agreement (APA) Members for 144 commodities that are similar or related products that the U.S. is now facing increased tariffs. Pecans and nuts are part of the reduced tariffs for the APA Members.”
