Sen. Baldwin joins group of senators, representatives introducing $1 billion aid program for farmers
Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and some of her Republican and Independent colleagues in the U.S. Senate introduced a $1 billion plan to help farmers struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.
The legislation is bipartisan and is in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.
It creates a $1 billion dollar program in the USDA that would be split up for states depending on how much they contribute to the nation’s food supply.
States would apply for the money, which could then be used to buy from farmers and get the food to people who need it.
“We worked with a lot of the agriculture advocacy groups to put something together to address these unique problems that we really haven’t seen before in the context of other disasters,” Baldwin said. “And there’s no real tool in the U.S. Department of Agriculture toolkit to address them the way we want to.”
Under this bill and based on Wisconsin’s contribution to the gross domestic product, the state would be one of 23 that would each get around $25 million.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Wisconsin would share the $25 million with other states, which was based off information given to News 3 Now at the time. It has been corrected.
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