The National Sustainable Agricultural Coalition representing small family farms and producers of organic and specialty crops and livestock has criticized the USDA Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) for favoring large corporate farms.  The Coalition maintains that the first-come-first-served policy to be followed by the USDA and the decision to allocate only 80 percent of the $16 billion in funds, benefits large entities committed to a single crop, disfavoring small-scale farmers with multiple income streams. The coalition claims that many small farmers will be at a disadvantage with respect to submission of CFAP claims due to lack of broadband access.
 

The most damaging provision of CFAP with respect to small farmers concerns assessing loss.  Payments will be based on published prices for commodity prices. This does not take into account the premiums paid for organic or specialty crops that are sold to restaurants and at farmers’ markets many of which have been closed due to COVID restrictions.

The CFAP Program, as with other USDA support initiatives, will consider general partnerships  as being eligible for funding. This obviously increases the quantum of payment to any specific farming enterprise.  The minimum standards for eligibility are regarded as too low with an individual needing to have spent only four hundred hours in a farming operation that is  claiming a loss.