How the government shutdown could impact the Central Valley ag industry

FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Friday marks day nine of the federal government shutdown.

“It’s not good for the American people, our economy, and for those federal employees that are essential workers,” Democratic Representative Jim Costa said.

The government has initiated substantial layoffs across several agencies, including Homeland Security and Education. Those layoffs do not count the thousands of employees they have already furloughed.

“The majority of Americans work hard every day. They live from paycheck to paycheck, and this clearly is something that we have to fix sooner than later,” Costa said.

The USDA has furloughed 42,000 people, which accounts for about half of its workforce. This comes after Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen said they already significantly reduced their staff earlier this year.

“I know people think of USDA and only ‘food,’ but it’s beyond that. I mean, there’s all the nutrition programs related to the USDA, but also the Forest Service positions across the nation and, most importantly, here in our backyard,” Jacobsen said.

Jacobsen says the Central Valley agriculture industry has not taken a significant hit, but that could change.

“If this goes on for multiple weeks or maybe potentially months, that becomes a lot more of a bigger concern,” Jacobsen said.

He added that, right now, the Farm Service Agency is not accepting or processing any farmers’ required environmental compliance applications.

“That does definitely slow things down as we move closer to some of those deadline dates towards the end of the year,” Jacobsen said.

So far, measures to end the shutdown have failed in the Senate five times.

Republicans chose not to reconvene this week, saying there’s nothing to negotiate.

“We’re going to go back again next week and I hope the Republicans will come back, reconvene the House of Representatives, because that’s the only way we can sit down and work out a compromise,” Costa said.