Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced an additional $14 billion for agricultural producers who continue to face financial challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and related market disruptions.

Recently, Congress extended the deadline to submit new PPP loan applications to August 8. While Farm Credit West will not re-open our own PPP online application portal to accept new loans, we will maintain a link to the Kabbage application on our website for any customers that still desire to apply for funding through this program.

Farm Credit West continues to take steps to ensure employee and customer safety through the duration of the impact of COVID-19. As previously communicated, we have practices in place in all our offices to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus including safe distancing, sanitation of high touch surfaces, promoting hand washing and avoiding large gatherings in conference and break rooms. We have also supplied each employee with washable face masks, have disposable face masks at each front counter and have made available digital thermometers for all employees.

Farm Credit West recently announced the award of $24,000 in scholarships to sixteen high-achieving students enrolled full time in colleges this fall. Farm Credit West joins our local communities in celebrating these exceptional students, as they achieved academic excellence while navigating unprecedented challenges as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic and corresponding shut-downs.

Agribusiness students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo will have additional funding for student projects in the years to come after Farm Credit donated nearly $255,000 this year to create an endowment fund for the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences.

In an effort to provide food to California families in need, Farm Credit, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) and Hilmar Cheese Company, Inc., are partnering to assist the expansion of the state’s Farm to Family Program, as recognized last week by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

For more than a quarter-century, the Center for Land-Based Learning has operated its successful FARMS Leadership Program, educating thousands of high school students about career opportunities in agriculture. And up through March of this year, the nonprofit had planned and implemented dozens of Field Day hands-on experiences throughout the state to get kids out of the classroom and onto working farms to learn more.

Farm Credit West, ACA, one of the nation’s largest agricultural lending cooperatives, announced today the distribution of $120,000 to food banks throughout California and Arizona. These contributions are aimed at providing relief to communities negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 40th EcoFarm Conference – the oldest and largest organic farming conference in the West – went off without a hitch in late January, providing some 1,600 attendees with a wide range of information about how to grow food sustainably.

Farm Credit understands the vital connection between farmers and their land, as well as the importance of preserving our natural resources. These beliefs have motivated Farm Credit to be a long-standing sponsor of the Leopold Conservation Award.