COVID-19 Food Assistance for Farmers

New for you on daybreak.

Farmers and ranchers are the backbone of america... providing food for just about everyone.

So without them... the country wouldn't be able to operate.

Madelyne is going to explain how this pandemic has impacted farmers and the help they can receive.

Brooke, since the end of september... almost half a million applications have come in from farmers needing financial assistance during the pandemic.

And i spoke with one of them.

"well i'd like to say that farmers are resilient, but we're as vulnerable as everybody else to the virus."

Bruce schmoll is a corn and soybean farmer in claremont and he recently applied for the coronavirus food assistance program 2.

There's 14 billion dollars available for farmers and ranchers who are facing disruptions because of covid?

"*19.

Some of those struggles are because of poor crop production, less ethanol, shipping issues on trade agreements and the ability to process livestock has dropped significantly.

Schmoll says because of this assistance program... not only are farmers able to make up for lost revenue this year... it also helps with offsetting the lower market prices in previous years.

He tells me americans "the variety of products that we produce just from corn alone ?

"* when you're talking about ethanol, it's not only the ethanol, it's the corn oil.

Right now, food grain ethanol is a big deal because it's helped out with hand sanitizer products.

So we've been able to supplement the shortage in that area."

Take a look at this... schmoll sent me this after our conversation and said when he looks at this picture, it helps him forget all about the virus issues.

And i think we can all take a thank you madelyne.

The deadline for farmers and ranchers to apply for food assistance is december 11th.

You can apply either online or in?

"*person with the farm service agency office in your area.

We have more information on our website kimt dot com