State Specialty Crop Block Grant Information

Preliminary Specialty Crop Report (April 10, 2002)

Letter to Congress (April 17, 2002)

Letter to the Secretary of Agriculture requesting further guidance and clarification on use of the state specialty crop grants (October 4, 2001)
      Response from Secretary Veneman to the NASDA Letter (November 29, 2001)

2001 Farm Assistance Bill: Grants by State

Section 7 (b), of the farm assistance package passed by Congress on August 13, 2001 (Public Law 107-25)--
Section 7 (b) provides "Grants for Value of Production," by State, in the amount that "represents the proportion of the value of specialty crop production in the State in relation to the national value of specialty crop production." The bill then goes on to list the amounts to be granted to each State. The dollars allocated to each State were based upon a percentage derived by adding together the total vegetables cash receipts and the total fruits & nuts cash receipts for that State for 1999, and then dividing that sum by $28,139,112,000, which is the U.S. 1999 total cash receipts for vegetables plus fruits & nuts. The percentage, representing the State's share of the U.S. total cash receipts for those items, was then applied to the $133,400,000 in available grant funds and rounded to come up with the dollar amounts listed in Section 7 (b) to be given to each State. The two cash receipts tables can be found on ERS's website in the section that ranks States by commodity groups, and then access the tables for vegetables, and fruits & nuts:

Information About State Programs