New Hampshire Agriculture COVID-19 Relief Program Expansion and Additional Funding Round Application Available

Concord, NH - The Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief & Recovery and the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets & Food announce that the New Hampshire Agriculture COVID-19 Relief Program has been expanded to include farms that did not qualify initially, or missed the registration deadline (“Expanded Farm Program”). The Expanded Farm Program supports smaller farms with less than $50,000 of 2019 gross sales which were ineligible initially.  
 
Governor Chris Sununu has authorized the allocation and expenditure of $2.5 million from the CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund (“flex funds”) to support non-dairy farms, in order to ease the burden of substantial new COVID-19-related costs like extra cleaning and sanitizing, ensuring social distancing, and lost sales. This includes $1.5 million previously allocated to specialty crop producers that had at least $50,000 of 2019 gross sales and registered for the program by June 22, 2020, and an additional $1 million to allow the Expanded Farm Program.
 
The Expanded Farm Program offers financial assistance to farms that cannot apply through the existing program specifically for specialty crop producers, whether because they had less than $50,000 of 2019 gross sales, or missed the registration deadline. Instead of the $50,000 threshold, the Expanded Farm Program has a much lower, application period-specific threshold based on COVID-19-related losses. Specifically, a farm is eligible to apply for relief funding, if, during the applicable time period, the farm had average COVID-19-related expenses of at least $500 per month, or average COVID-19-related lost sales of at least $1,000 per month (as compared to 2019). The significantly lower threshold makes agriculture relief available to smaller farms, while ensuring it still helps those most in need of financial assistance. This funding opportunity is available to all agricultural producers, rather than specialty crop producers only.     
 
An eligible farm under the Expanded Farm Program, like registered specialty crop producer, can submit up to three applications, but without having to register ahead of time.
 
The Expanded Farm Program application period for COVID-19-related expenses and/or lost sales incurred during the period from March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020 is NOW OPEN and available here: https://nhpublichealth.force.com/nhgoferr/Proposal_Core_Listing_Page. The deadline is August 31, 2020 at 11:59 PM.  
 
The next application deadlines for both registered specialty crop producers and expanded farms are:

• October 15, 2020, for July 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020
• December 10, 2020, for October 1, 2020 to November 30, 2020

For more information, visit https://www.goferr.nh.gov/covid-expenditures/nh-agriculture-grants, or contact Gail McWilliam Jellie at gail.d.mcwilliamjellie@agr.nh.gov, or 603-271-3551.