NORTHSTATE, Calif. -- The Department of Agriculture has announced a new program to help farm workers with perishable crops, called the Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops Program or (MASC).
Eligible crops include fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, nursery crops like Christmas trees, as well as well as culinary and medicinal herbs and spices. Also included is honey, maple sap, tea and more. The full list of included and unincluded crops can be found here. If you farm both an included crop and an excluded crop, you can still apply, by entering your information for the specialty crop that you have.
The USDA said that the goal is to aid in expanding the domestic specialty crop market, as well as developing new markets in 2025. Ruth Ford from the USPA in Red Bluff said that local counties are included in this national incentive.
"We have a lot of them between Butte County, Tehama County, Colusa County, and our little district here."
Louis Nash is a third-generation farm owner at Nash Ranch in Redding. He said that even with 400 acres of land, it can be difficult to turn a profit, so much so that all of his family workers work separate full-time jobs away from farming just to support the farm.
"I'm an engineer, my wife's a nurse, my sister is a physician assistant, and my dad did economic development for over 35 years" Nash said.
Farmers across Northern California have been battling ever-changing weather conditions this past year, with excess heat in the summer and tremendous downpours in the winter, negatively impacting crop production.
Nash said that the summer was incredibly difficult.
"In the summer We clocked 125 degrees out here on the farm in July or whenever that heat wave was a lot of our sprouts died right then and there.," Nash explained.
Ultimately, Nash said that he is one in a million of the farmers who are struggling.
"We got phone calls from other buyers every day from other growers trying to buy from us but we didn't have anything to sell them."
All applications and forms must be submitted by Jan. 8, 2025.