USDA’s Farm Service Agency will now accept applications for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) through an online portal, expanding the options available to producers to apply for this program, which helps offset price declines and additional marketing costs because of the coronavirus pandemic. FSA is also leveraging commercial document storage and e-signature solutions to enable producers to work with local service center staff to complete their applications from home.

Through the portal, producers with secure USDA login credentials—known as eAuthentication—can certify eligible commodities online, digitally sign applications and submit directly to the local USDA Service Center. Producers who do not have an eAuthentication account can learn more and begin the enrollment process at farmers.gov/sign-in. Currently, the digital application is only available to sole proprietors or single-member business entities.

USDA has several other options for producers to complete and submit their CFAP applications. These include:

• Downloading the AD-3114 application form from farmers.gov/cfap and manually completing the form to submit to the local USDA Service Center by mail, electronically or by hand delivery to an office drop box. In some limited cases, the office may be open for in-person business by appointment. Visit farmers.gov/coronavirus/service-center-status to check the status of your local office.
• Completing the application form using our CFAP Application Generator and Payment Calculator found at farmers.gov/cfap. This Excel workbook allows customers to input information specific to their operation to determine estimated payments and populate the application form, which can be printed, and then signed and submitted to their local USDA Service Center.

As part of an effort to help scientists understand COVID and develop treatments, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a centralized, secure enclave to store and study clinical record data from people who have been diagnosed.  The collaborative aims to transform clinical information into knowledge urgently needed to study COVID-19, including health risk factors that indicate better or worse outcomes of the disease, and identify potentially effective treatments. Read more here.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina Rural Health Research Program created a chart that shows the number of rural hospitals in each state and measures community vulnerability using the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index. Read more here.

On Monday, June 22, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced the selection of the Morehouse School of Medicine as the awardee for a new $40 million initiative to fight COVID-19 in racial and ethnic minority, rural, and socially vulnerable communities. The initiative – the National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC) – is a three-year project designed to work with community-based organizations across the nation to deliver education, information, and resources. Read more here.

By Jan Pytalski and Tim Marema

The Postal Service delivers economic access and democracy to small communities during the Covid-19 crisis, says a rural letter carrier. Privatization would leave rural America behind, he says. Read more here.

By Liz Carey

Folks at Ferry County Memorial Hospital in northeast Washington are grateful that the steps they took to prevent Covid-19 appear to be working. But the cost to the hospital and community have still been substantial. Read more here.

By Mikhal Ben Joseph

Rural moms already faced a host of obstacles to get good prenatal care. Rural nurse midwives and doulas are trying to fill the gap. (Part of a series.) Read more here.

By Tim Marema

More than half of the latest new Covid-19 cases in rural America came from a small number of hotspot counties, most of which are in the Southeastern United States. Read more here.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf sent a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue urging the USDA to extend waivers granted to provide states for longer than a month at a time to preserve flexibility they need to ensure the uninterrupted and safe administration of public benefits during the COVID-19 public health crisis. The flexibilities granted by waivers from the USDA specifically related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reduce the need for in-person interactions between Department of Human Service (DHS) staff and current and potential clients, keeping both safer from COVID-19 while allowing DHS to continue to meet needs of Pennsylvanians during this period of economic uncertainty.

Numerous waivers previously granted by the USDA for the SNAP program were set to expire on June 30. Thus far, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) has been granted a one-month extension for the following waivers:

• Elimination of Face-to-Face and Quality Control Interviews: Under normal circumstances, a face-to-face interview must be conducted to determine benefit eligibility and at random for quality control processes. Due to COVID-19, these waivers allows states to perform interviews over the phone to accommodate social distancing and keep DHS staff and clients safe while ensuring continuity of benefits and eligibility determinations.
• Extension of Fair Hearing and Administrative Disqualification Hearings Timeframes: These waivers help Pennsylvania remain in compliance with SNAP regulations by granting DHS staff more time to conduct appeals and disqualification hearings. DHS’ Bureau of Hearings and Appeals is currently operating under a blended on-site and telework model, but there is currently a backlog of cases being worked through from when the stay at home order first began in March. Without these waivers, Pennsylvania would be out of compliance with federal regulations.
• Temporary Suspension of Claims Collections: This waiver allows Pennsylvania’s Office of Inspector General to pause recoupment if SNAP benefits are overpaid. Without this waiver, SNAP households with a previous overpayment would receive less benefits during the COVID-19 health emergency and would have complicated households’ ability to receive emergency SNAP payments. Given current economic uncertainty, the Wolf Administration would like to continue this temporary pause to prevent further strain on households until circumstances improve.

These waivers are set to expire on July 31, 2020, but Pennsylvania is requesting a longer term, 90-day extension. Waiver extensions of up to 90 days, instead of the current 30 days, would allow for greater predictability and efficiency in DHS operations, as the certainty would eliminate the need to reapply for waivers each month and prepare processes for changes necessary if waivers are not granted.

DHS has also requested wavier extensions to extend SNAP certification periods so current recipients do not have to submit additional paperwork in order to maintain benefits, and to adjust interview requirements, which can slow issuance of benefits and increase rates of people churning off and back on to SNAP. These waivers are also set to expire on June 30.

Governor Wolf also encouraged the USDA to continue to allow states to extend emergency SNAP allotments to current SNAP households. These payments, which are authorized under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, grant an additional payment to SNAP households that do not receive the maximum monthly benefit for their household size to bring these households to the monthly maximum.

Pennsylvania was approved for this benefit for July, but states lose the authority to issue the supplemental payments if the federal or state disaster declarations are rescinded. Without this, Pennsylvania would lose $100 million per month in additional federal funds that get returned to grocers, farmers markets, and other small businesses in local economies, and SNAP households would receive only the normal benefit amount when many counties still experiencing economic challenges as well as increases in the cost of groceries.

Governor Wolf also urged Secretary Perdue and the USDA to recognize the important role the SNAP program plays in helping more than 1.9 million Pennsylvanians avoid going hungry, which can have adverse effects on a person’s health and well-being. Because SNAP primarily serves populations like the elderly and low-income communities that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, removing flexibilities that could potentially remove people from the program would be another way of directing support away from vulnerable Pennsylvanians.

Read the full letter here.