 Hello, this is Terry Hansen. I'm with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. I'm an aquaculture economist and along with my colleagues Anita Kelly and Luke Roy from the Alabama Fish Farming Center. I'm going to give you some information today about the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. It's acronym is CFAP called CFAP. CFAP is a USDA program that came out of the CARES Act and a final rule was published in the Federal Register and it announces that it will provide $16 billion in direct payments to provide relief for farmers and ranchers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides direct relief to producers who have suffered a 5% or greater price loss over a specified time due to COVID-19, who have suffered additional marketing costs for inventories. It can be due to lower prices, surplus production or disruptions to shipping patterns and orderly marketing of commodities. This initial rule provides relief for livestock, dairy, and specialty crop producers, but it does not include aquaculture or catfish at this time nor does it include nursery producers. When the Farm Service Agency was doing their cost-benefit allowance, they could not find sufficient damage justifications for these commodities to be included in the initial final rule. However, they came out with another document called the NOFA or Notice of Funding Availability and Additional Commodities Request for Information that does specifically ask for information for aquaculture to see if it can become qualified and for the nursery industry. So hopefully additional monies will be allocated to aquaculture, which includes catfish producers in the future, but right now that is uncertain. But they did stress in the NOFA that you would have to still meet the CFAP requirements. So Auburn University and the people at the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service have been working with other catfish industry people, like the catfish farmers of America and Mississippi State University Extension people, to provide the relevant information to the USDA Farm Service Agency to get catfish included in the next round. This NOFA has a 30-day comment period, which began May 22, 2020 and goes until June 22, 2020. I must stress that this is not an application, but this is a request for information from aquaculture individuals, that is you catfish producers and organizations that represent this industry to make their determination of a price decline of 5% or more. What you'll see when you go to the NOFA site, which I'll show you the link to in a minute, is NOFA is looking for three pieces of information that they would like you to respond to. One deals with average price you receive for catfish products sold the weeks of January 13th through January 17th, 2020, or the nearest date to this. And also in April 6th through April 10th, 2020, or nearest date to this. And also the pounds of products you sold between January 15th and April 15th, 2020. Why are they using these dates? That January date is their official knowledge of COVID existing in the United States. And then the April 6th through 10th is when they wrote the CARE Act. Secondly, they want to know the quantity of catfish product. And when they say catfish product, if you sell fingerlings, that's a product. If you sell food-sized fish, that's a product. So they want this information for each product that you produce and left your farm by April 15th, 2020. And what amount of these pounds quote unquote spoiled due to no market, or for which you did not have nap to cover your loss? And spoiled isn't really a term we use in the catfish industry, but we know if fish get too large, they go down in their price per pound. As they get greater than six pounds or greater than eight pounds, the price goes down substantially. So that could be a quote unquote spoilage for catfish. Third, they are asking for the inventory of catfish products as of April 15th, 2020, that will not be sold due to lack of markets. Now, this CFAP NOFA comment responses. If you get this information together, you can post this comment in one of two ways. You can go to their website and search for that docket ID, FSA 2020-004, and they give you instructions for submitting your response online. Or you can write it out, type it out, and mail it to the director USDA in Washington, DC. But note that all comments received become a matter of public record. And what this means is it'll be out there for anybody in the world to see. So if you put your name or address, it will be out there for people to see. Now, if sufficient information is received by the FSA that they can add catfish to the CFAP program, then USDA will issue another NOFA, Notice of Funding Availability, and it will list the additional commodities and give specifics such as what the respective payment rates will be, the application dates, and other information that they may ask of you, and the availability of CFAP payments. This sounds like a lot, but it is a timeline that we will keep you aware of. At this point, there is no sign up for the CFAP for aquaculture or catfish producers. That is for other specialty crops, livestock, and other commodities. But the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service and the Alabama Fish Farming Center will keep you informed of these future programs so that you know what to do, who to send information to, and not miss application dates. Now, we've gone over very briefly this program, and here we have three websites to get more information about the CFAP program. The first website goes directly to the Farm Service Agency who will be administering the CFAP program, and they give you a lot of details there about the commodities that are currently eligible, and then even this NOFA about future commodities that may be included and where to send information in the response to the NOFA. The second website is the CFAP Final Rule, and it gives a lot of details about specific commodities and payment rates and calculations to come up with your payment rate. There's even a payment calculator in there. The third website is the Notice of Funding Availability, and it's an Additional Commodities Request for Information. This is where you'll get information about aquaculture and the items 1A, BC, item 2, and item 3 that I just went over, that they will want information provided to them. If you have questions, you can always contact us. My name is Terry Hansen, and this is my email address, or Anita Kelly and her email address, or Luke Roy and his email address. So, you can go to those websites I just gave you, or you can go to these send us emails and ask us information. Well, thank you very much, and stay safe.