New Hampshire Agriculture Relief Program

Registration Open for Specialty Crop Producers

The Governor has authorized the allocation and expenditure of $10 million in emergency funding from the CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund to support New Hampshire dairy farmers, and specialty crop producers, including fruit, vegetable, and ornamental plant growers, and maple producers, with COVID-19 related expenses and lost revenues from March 1, 2020 to December 30, 2020.  Specifically, the Governor has authorized the allocation of $4.5 million to dairy farmers for milk price support; $1.5 million to specialty crop producers in order to ease the burden of substantial new COVID-19-related costs like extra cleaning and sanitizing, ensuring social distancing, and lost revenues; and $4 million for emergency grants to ensure stability in the food supply.  The New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, Markets and Food (“Agriculture”) will administer these programs.      

Specialty Crop Producers

Agriculture will determine the relief funding to be made to specialty crop producers, including fruit, vegetable, and ornamental plant growers, and maple producers on a quarterly basis, provided that the producer: (1) had at least $50,000 of calendar year 2019 gross sales; and (2) has incurred COVID-19-related expenses and/or lost revenue during the applicable quarter.  The $1.5 million allocation will be divided up based on historical sales.  Agriculture will require eligible producers to submit actual COVID-19-related expense and lost revenue information on a quarterly basis, and, upon review, will process relief funding payments based on each farmer’s quarterly proportional share.  Agriculture will require all eligible specialty crop producers who intend to apply for relief funding to first register for this program.  

The registration form is a mandatory prerequisite to later apply for relief funding under this program.  If a producer does not timely complete the online registration form, the producer cannot apply for relief.  More information about the application phase will be available soon.            

Registration is open June 8, 2020, and ends on June 22, 2020 at 11:59 PM.  Register here for the NH Agriculture COVID-19 Relief Program – Registration.

Agriculture’s Registration Fact Sheet is available here.

Dairy Farmers

Agriculture will determine the relief funding to be made to dairy farmers on a monthly basis, up to a total of $4.5 million.  Agriculture will calculate every dairy farmer’s COVID-19-related lost revenue from falling milk prices by comparing the price actually paid for milk shipped into the fluid milk market to the Agri-Mark Northeast Milk Price Forecasts, 2019-2020, dated February 28, 2020.  The lost revenue amount will be adjusted for: (1) insurance, by subtracting any payout if the dairy farmer had purchased insurance, or the premium amount that the dairy farmer would have paid had it purchased insurance; and (2) additional federal relief funding.  The monthly relief payment to each dairy farmer will be the dairy farmer’s lost revenue during the applicable month(s) adjusted for insurance and additional federal relief funding.  Agriculture will obtain this information and process payments automatically without the need for any formal request or application process.  Each dairy farmer, however, must submit a signed award agreement before receiving any relief funding.  The first payments will likely be made in June.  

More information about this program will be available soon.      

In addition, due to the uncertainty around the food supply, the Governor’s Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery (GOFERR) will reserve $4 million to make emergency grants should the need arise. In the event that Agriculture determines a specific industry requires support in order to continue production, GOFERR will work with Agriculture to administer aid to that industry consistent with CARES Act guidance.

https://www.goferr.nh.gov/covid-expenditures/nh-agriculture-grants