Insights on federal coronavirus (COVID-19) relief efforts for Texas farmers and ranchers, including details on Small Business Administration (SBA) loans and programs, were discussed during a Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Tele-Town Hall Thursday night.
Offering insights and answering questions were U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, SBA Dallas/Fort Worth District Director Herb Austin, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Economist Veronica Nigh and AFBF Director of Congressional Relations R.J. Karney.
Over 425 individuals registered for the town hall event.
“This is a huge topic for Texas farmers and ranchers. The hardships and the impacts of the pandemic are very real,” TFB President Russell Boening said in his opening remarks of the town hall. “A statewide audience is with us tonight, and Texas Farm Bureau is honored to provide this important discussion.”
SBA announced Thursday that 1.6 million applicants for Payroll Protection Protection (PPP) loans from over 5,000 lenders had exhausted the $350 billion initially authorized for the program. Austin said about $21 billion in PPP loans had been authorized for Texas small businesses, the most of any state in the country.
Nigh said nationally, as of April 13, there were 27,428 loan applications from agricultural businesses for nearly $3 billion, which represented about 1.2 percent of disbursed funds, at that time. The average amount of approved dollars per application for agriculture was $108,000, which was the lowest among the 20 sub-sectors in which data were provided.
Cornyn said he is confident additional relief legislation will be authorized by Congress in the coming days.
“For agriculture, we know that the prices are down for everything. For cattle, the cotton, the fruits and vegetables, dairy and a number of crops are starting to go out of supply, with reduced demand. And then there’s some meat packing plants that are temporary closed down because of the virus,” Cornyn said. “And farmers, ranchers, producers around the state are wondering how to survive this new, not a natural disaster, not bad weather, but this virus that has been unleashed on our country.”
Thursday’s event was the second TFB-sponsored tele-town hall in April. The April 7 event focused on cattle industry issues.
To hear an audio recording of the April 16 tele-town hall, click here.