Emergency Memo

1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Room 2055-S, STOP 0201
Washington, D.C. 20250-0201
TO:

Dominic Mancini
Deputy Director
Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Levi S. Harrell
Departmental Clearance Officer
Office of the Chief Information Officer
FROM:

Melissa Bailey
Associate Administrator

SUBJECT:

Request for Emergency Review and Approval for a New Information Collection
Request

MELISSA
BAILEY

Digitally signed by
MELISSA BAILEY
Date: 2021.10.29
11:32:20 -04'00'

We are requesting emergency review and approval of an information collection package for the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to administer a
new discretionary grant program, titled the Farm and Food Workers Relief Grant Program
(FFWR), authorized and funded under section 751 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of
2021 (CAA) (Pub. L. No. 116—260) in response to the ongoing 2019 novel coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic.
The agency cannot reasonably comply with the normal clearance procedures under the PRA due
to the immediate need to provide financial assistance to farm and food workers impacted by
COVID-19. Through this $700,000,000 program, AMS will award discretionary grants to State
agencies, tribal entities, and nonprofit organizations that will then support relief services to
farmworkers, meatpacking, or front-line grocery workers for personal protective equipment
(PPE) and costs associated with social distancing, transportation, vaccinations, and personal,
family, or living expenses associated with quarantines and testing related to the COVID-19
pandemic, including foregone income and dependent care expenses. Recipients must
demonstrate that they have experience in providing support or relief services to farmworkers,
meatpacking workers, or grocery workers. Examples of providing support or relief services
include, but are not limited to:
•
•
•

Providing personal protective equipment such as masks to such workers,
Hosting a COVID-19 vaccine clinic or outreach campaign, or
Providing financial support to such workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The FFWR program emerged as an Administration priority in late spring 2021 after hearing from
stakeholders on our other emergency COVID relief grant programs (Pandemic Response and
Safety (PRS) and Seafood Processors Pandemic Response and Safety (SPRS)). FFWR is derived
from the same funding stream and the same context for emergency justification is being
employed. Historically, USDA emergency relief programs provided aid to producers and

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processors only. While workers were severely impacted by the loss of income due to
emergencies such as crop-affecting droughts or diseases, emergency relief typically did not reach
those workers. To correct this imbalance and support the critical worker population on which
this sector depends, USDA created the Farm and Food Worker Relief Grant Program as a part of
its pandemic relief package. AMS has received clear direction that we needed to fill the gap and
serve this underserved constituency who kept the food supply chain going at the direst of times.
The policy development for this effort encompassed many months due to the complexity of
working with a new, underserved population, the need to build robust financial controls and
ranking criteria for organizations who will be entrusted with significant government funds
through this grant program, and the need to obtain guidance from Department of Treasury on the
tax implications for payments to affected workers.
Recipients will issue flat-rate $600 disaster relief payments to eligible workers. Up to 800,000
farmworkers, 500,000 meatpackers, and 42,000 grocery workers are expected to be eligible
beneficiaries of these grants. The more limited number of grocery worker beneficiaries is due to
the bulk of the funds being targeted to farmworkers and meatpacking workers; the grant program
is allocating a limited pool of funding (at least $20,000,000 of the $700,000,000) for a grocery
worker pilot. The pilot is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of building out a larger program
in the future should additional funding become available.
Grants will be awarded in amounts of up to $50,000,000, and recipients are not required to
provide matching funds. The notice of funding opportunity will require the applicant to indicate
the number and type of workers they intend to serve, and how they intend to communicate with
“hard to reach” worker populations, including workers with low literacy and low English
proficiency individuals, throughout the United States.
America’s farmworker, meatpacking and grocery workers have been on the frontlines since the
pandemic began, risking their health to keep our food supply secure during this crisis. A 2020
study of deidentified data from the 2014-2017 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
indicates that of the 56.7 million to 74.3 million essential workers and their family members
living with them who face an increased risk of contracting COVID-19, as many as 61% are at a
heightened risk of severe COVID-19.
Farmworkers represent a population that has faced unique challenges related to health, housing,
education, childcare, migration, among others. Labor laws exempt farmworkers in particular
from minimum wage and overtime requirements, as well as allowing some exemptions to child
labor restrictions. Many farmworkers, unlike other professionals, are not afforded the same
safety nets that permit them to miss work, support them with health care, paid leave, or
unemployment benefits. Though farmworkers are not necessarily more susceptible to COVID19 than the general population, many farmworkers lack access to handwashing facilities at work,
socially distanced transportation, and low-density housing options. Farmworkers often lack
access to preventative medical care, health insurance, or the financial resources to travel to and
seek care. The 2017 Census of Agriculture estimated that there are about 2.4 million
farmworkers nationwide.

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Meatpacking plants experienced some of the deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks when the pandemic
first began. Across the country, meatpacking workers have had to use their own money to pay
for personal protective equipment to stay safe on the job, shoulder the burden of increased
childcare costs, take on expenses from COVID-19 testing and quarantining, and much more.
The meat and poultry industry employs approximately 500,000 workers and represents nearly 30
percent of food and beverage manufacturing employees (USDA-ERS 2020). This workforce is
distributed over tasks spanning from the initial animal harvesting efforts in meat packing plants
to subsequent tasks for further processing and packaging meat items in processing facilities.
This diverse set of tasks involves a series of precise functions requiring training. While the
COVID-19 pandemic resulted in mass layoffs in several industries, the meat processing sector
instead faced critical workforce shortages. Outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at some
facilities and social distancing, school and daycare closures, and measures to protect those
people who are most at-risk limited the pool of workers to draw upon. The reserve pool of
potential meat packing workers is negligible, even before accounting for these absentee issues.
The disruptions presented by COVD-19 to-date have been historic and never experienced by
most involved. COVID-19 has seemingly impacted every stage in the meat supply chain.
Like the other categories of essential workers referenced above, frontline grocery workers
continue to face health risk during this COVID-19 Delta variant surge. A single-store study
conducted in 2020 found that grocery store workers who interact with customers may be five
times more likely to contract COVID-19 than their colleagues who don’t have direct contact with
customers. The Department of Labor estimates that there are about 2.6 million grocery workers
nationwide.
The Farm and Food Workers Relief Grant Program is voluntary, and respondents will apply for
this specific discretionary program. In doing so, they provide information, and AMS is the
primary user of the information. The information collected is needed to certify that participants
are complying with applicable program regulations in section 751 of the CAA and in accordance
with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Guidance on Grants and Agreements (2
C.F.R. Part 200). The data collected is the minimum information necessary for AMS to
effectively carry out the program requirements and to provide the respondents the support they
request to address the financial costs for their pandemic response efforts.
In compliance with OMB regulations (5 C.F.R. Part 1320) which implement the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13), the information collection and recordkeeping
requirements that may be imposed by this action are submitted to OMB for emergency review
and approval. The additional reporting requirements would not become effective prior to OMB
review. Once approved the collection will be merged with OMB No. 0581-0240, AMS Grant
Programs.
Attached are the OMB 83-I, the Supporting Statement, and AMS-71 spreadsheet.