U.S. Rep. Delgado discusses federal stimulus aid with local officials

By JASON SUBIK
Staff Writer
During a conference call with U.S. Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-Rhinebeck, Thursday, Montgomery County Executive Matt Ossenfort sounded an alarm about the agricultural industry in his county.
Ossenfort told Delgado dairy farms make up about 90 percent of the agricultural activity in Montgomery County, and they were struggling before the coronavirus pandemic.
He said farmers are being forced to dump milk, and many are on the brink of going bankrupt.
“I recently spoke to one family farm looking to take out a half a million dollar loan just to keep their heads above water,” Ossenfort said.
Ossenfort said over the last several years he’s seen a growing trend of consolidation of farms, some being purchased by Amish farmers, and a continual theme of economic stress in the agricultural backbone of his county. He said the economic hardships brought by the virus are only accelerating the already negative circumstances for many farmers.
“I actually said to my economic development director [Ken Rose] earlier, when we were discussing this, I said ‘is this the end of dairy farming as we’ve known it in Montgomery County?’” he told Delgado during the conference call. “That’s what we need to prevent.”
Delgado conducted a town hall conference call Thursday evening with Ossenfort, Montgomery County Public Health Director Sara Boerenko, Assemblywoman Didi Barrett, D-Dutchess/Columbia, and U.S. Small Business Administration official Dan Rickman. The purpose of the call was to take questions from residents of Delgado’s 19th Congressional District, which includes the western rural part of Montgomery County.
Much of the call was focused on how people can apply for assistance through the recently passed $2.2 trillion CARES Act.
Delgado said he has 27,000 small businesses in his district and he said he will help them in any way he can to access the funds available in the stimulus package.
One constituent asked Delgado if there was some way to connect farmers who are dumping agricultural products because of lack of demand with hungry people in need of food.
Delgado said the dairy market was in trouble before the pandemic in part due to market consolidation and to President Trump’s trade war with China, which stymied access to international demand. He said he’s advocated for a disaster declaration that might enable farmers to donate food directly into emergency efforts to help feed the poor, but he said the erosion of the dairy market infrastructure hinders the potential for doing that.
“In the case of milk, it’s not always an option to bring their product to market; when a processor closes, dairy can’t get their product to market,” he said. “That’s the reality that I’m hearing across the district.”
Delgado said he’s attempting to work with the State Department to eliminate the need for in-person interviews for the agricultural visa programs, to help farmers get needed laborers. He said $9.5 billion in disaster relief assistance is also available for farmers with disrupted markets, but he’s not sure how the  U.S. Department of Agriculture will disperse the funds.
“We’re still waiting, unfortunately, on items, on how the $9.5 billion will be dispersed. We do not want this to be like with the tariffs, where only large operations are getting the resources,” Delgado said.
Boerenko provided her expertise regarding the issue of containing the spread of the virus in migrant laborer populations.
“I have had some contact with some of our local farmers who utilize migrant farm workers, as to what we will be doing to help assist in preventing the spread of the virus when those groups come into our area to start doing seasonal work,” she said. “We are getting a lot of information out to our community in Spanish, because that is our population, and what we’re finding is that actually our Latino population, because they understand the health disparities of [the health of that population compared to more affluent people] they are actually working closely with us and really working with us, because they know how the health of [ethnic and racial] minorities is typically impacted by not having enough information that is accurate, and in a language they can understand.”
Delgado discussed some of the details of the labyrinth of relief programs available in the CARES Act, including one he authored the Small Business Repayment Relief Act, which includes $17 billion in relief to automatically cover six months of loan payments, including principle, interest and fees, on all current and new qualified Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.
“If you have an existing SBA loan, or a new one that you’re entering into, the payment on that loan for the next six months can be waived — not deferred, waived,” he said.
Another major provision in the CARES ACt is the $350 billion available as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, which offers up to $10 million in loans for small businesses and nonprofits with up to 500 employees to help pay for payroll and other costs over a period of up to 8 weeks, with the loans being forgiven if the business retains employees at their salary levels. Delgado said demand for this program has been so high it seems likely the funding will need to increase as part of an additional aid package.
He then pointed out what he considers one of the weaknesses of the aid package. He said the CARES Act has $10 billion to expand the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program. The funds, which are available to small-and mid-size businesses, including startups, cooperatives, and ESOPs, will be used to provide up to $10,000 in loan advances, which allow businesses to receive an immediate, emergency advance on that loan from the SBA within three business days of applying. The advance does not need to be paid back, regardless of whether the small business owner is approved for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, which can provide loans for up to $2 million.
But that program isn’t available to farmers.
“Unfortunately, currently, farmers are not currently eligible for this disaster loan. We, in congress, intended for the farmers to be included, and that’s why I wrote a letter, with about 86 of my colleagues, urging that the SBA make that adjustment and utilize this disaster relief in the way that congress intended so that our farmers could access these funds as well,” he said. “Our federal agencies need to treat our small farms and small businesses in this regard and really provide for disaster assistance relief that they should be eligible for.”
Several of the 19th Congressional District residents who called the conference complained about the difficulties self-employed people have with applying for and receiving unemployment assistance, even though they are supposed to be eligible due to the coronavirus crisis.
“Mostly my comment is, that I completed my application twice online, only to have it basically, quit, and invalidate the process,” one caller said.
Delgado said he empathizes with the self-employed and everyone who has had trouble accessing funding. He said his team is available to help people with their applications, but he knows the system is being overwhelmed by the number of people in need.
“I think we all understand this is a very challenging process, to say the least, we’re talking about the largest stimulus package in the nation’s history, and there are going to be things that need to be ironed out,” he said.
The phone number to Delgado’s main office in Washington D.C. is (202) 225-5614 and his congressional website, delgado.house.gov, has the phone numbers to all of his district offices, as well as a COVID-19 resource guide.
Ossenfort thanked Delgado for the town hall conference call and said he is counting on him to help Montgomery County residents access as much of the federal and state assistance as possible.