Of the near 10,000 WHIP+ applications submitted in Minnesota so far, about 4,300 applications have received money totaling about $60 million. Minnesota Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Joe Martin says there are still lots of applications to work on and progress has been made in the last month and a half. Martin acknowledges a delay is due, in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic and the roll out of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. Yet Martin doesn’t know when farmers will receive the second half of the payment. “We are paying 100 percent for all of the 2018 losses,’ says Martin. “For the 2019 losses, we’re only paying 50 percent at this time. We’re doing that because there’s an appropriation for the WHIP+ program and it wasn’t unlimited. We’re withholding that 50 percent to ensure there’s enough money to make the rest of the payment.”
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