March 20 is National Agriculture Day\u2014a day designated each year by the\u00a0Agriculture Council of America\u00a0to celebrate the accomplishments of agriculture. The\u00a0Farm Service Agency\u00a0joins the council in thanking American agricultural producers, especially in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, for their contributions to the nation\u2019s outstanding quality of life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s theme,\u00a0\u201cAgriculture: Food for Life,\u201d\u00a0spotlights the hard work of American farmers, ranchers and foresters who diligently work to provide food, fiber and more to the United States and countries around the world. To ensure a prosperous future for American agriculture, FSA provides continuous support to agriculturalists across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FSA is rural America\u2019s engine for economic growth, job creation and development, offering local service to millions of rural producers. In fiscal year 2017,\u00a0USDA Farm Loan programs provided $6 billion in support to producers across America, the second highest total in FSA history. FSA also distributed $1.6 billion in Conservation Reserve Program payments to over 375,000 Americans to improve water quality, reduce soil erosion and increase wildlife habitat.<\/p>\n
For agricultural producers who suffered market downturns in 2016, USDA is issuing approximately $8 billion in payments under the\u00a0Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs. USDA also continues to provide extensive assistance in response to natural\u00a0disasters\u00a0throughout the country, including last year\u2019s hurricanes in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, drought in the northern high plains, wildfires in the west and central plains, floods, tornados, freezes and other catastrophic weather events.<\/p>\n
To support\u00a0beginning farmers and ranchers, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue signed a memorandum of understanding with officials from\u00a0SCORE, the nation\u2019s largest volunteer network of expert business mentors, to support new and beginning farmers. The agreement provides new help and resources for beginning ranchers, veterans, women, socially disadvantaged Americans and others, providing new tools to help them both grow and thrive in agribusiness.<\/p>\n
I am honored to administer programs that enable our producers to manage their risks when the agriculture industry faces hardship. On behalf of the Farm Service Agency supporting Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, I would like to thank our agricultural producers for continuing to feed our nation and the world.<\/p>\n
For more information about FSA programs and services, visit\u00a0https:\/\/www.fsa.usda.gov\/. (Al Frenzel, Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><\/p>\n Frenzel is the state executive director of the Hawaii and Pacific Basin Farm Service Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 20 is National Agriculture Day\u2014a day designated each year by the\u00a0Agriculture Council of America\u00a0to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[550,20436,121,117],"class_list":["post-272024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-fsa","tag-national-agriculture-day","tag-northern-mariana-islands","tag-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}