- How a grant through the USDA is offering farmers a way to save energy and money.
- The USDA is expanding farmers access to renewable energy through the Rural Energy for America program.
- Watch to see how one South Georgian farmer decided to use grant funding to save on energy cost.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The USDA says it's time for farmers to reap the benefits of feeding America.
"It's really a struggle trying to make it farming. This is the worst I've seen in my lifetime,”said Raymond Thompson, co owner of Thompson Family Farms.
How a grant through the USDA is offering farmers a way to save energy and money.
Raymond Thompson partnered with his wife Amy Thompson to form Thompson Family Farm back in 2001.
Over time the couple tells me they've learned to become diverse growers to have multiple marketable income.
"[We] farm cotton corn and peanuts… Sow beans.. And a little bit of wheat,” said Raymond.
I looked up farming costs online and found that the Georgia Crop Improvement Association reports that the cost for cotton averaged 72 cents per pound; peanuts $400 per ton and corn at $4.15 per bushel back in 2018.
Raymond shared how the cost to farm has risen since then making it hard for farmers to turn a profit.
"In the 90's we were going to crop for maybe $600 per acre now we have as much as $1500 to $1800 an acre in a crop,” according to Raymond.
The USDA is expanding farmers' access to renewable energy through the Rural Energy for America program.
The program offers grants to help agricultural producers and rural small business owners make energy efficiency improvements to lower energy cost.
"We all depend on good healthy food..that means supporting farmers across the county that are working hard to produce it,” said Xochitl Torres Small, deputy secretary for the USDA
Small explained how the REAP program supplied over $200,000 in funding towards the Thompson's grain dryer facility.
"To decrease the cost of the energy to dry the corn in this case and save a little in terms of the cost to produce their crop,” said Small.
Small told me The Agriculture Rural Development FDA sub committee approved REAP grant funding after congressman Sandford Bishop advised the committee that agriculture plays a major economic role here in South Georgia.
Raymond encourages growers to see if the REAP program will help them save on costs like the grant allowed for him and his family farm.
"Be better for the environment and be better for making your farm a little more profitable,” said Raymond.
Farmers or small business owners can reach out to the USDA by visiting USDA.gov. Find information about the REAP program here.
