The U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin issuing final pandemic assistance payments to timber harvesters and timber hauling businesses through the Pandemic Assistance for Timber Harvesters and Haulers (PATHH) program starting this week. In total, $200 million will be provided to loggers and log trucking businesses who experienced a gross revenue loss of at least 10 percent during the period of Jan. 1 through Dec. 1, 2020, compared to the period of Jan. 1 through Dec. 1, 2019. This support is part of USDA’s broader Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative.
Eligible PATHH applicants must have derived at least 50 percent of total gross revenue from timber harvesting and/or timber hauling. Specifically, eligible activities included cutting timber, transporting timber and/or the processing of wood on-site on the forest land, such as chipping, grinding, converting to biochar or cutting to smaller lengths.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, authorized up to $200 million for PATHH. FSA issued initial payments up to $2,000 as applications were approved. Now that signup has ended and FSA has evaluated remaining funds, FSA has started to issue second payments to those applicants whose calculated payment amount was over $2,000.
Based on the number of actual PATHH applications filed, FSA will be required to lower the payment limitation for PATHH from $125,000 to $75,000 and apply a payment factor of 70.5% across all calculated payments to ensure program outlays do not exceed the available funding. These provisions were previously outlined in the Notice of Funding Availability in the event the revenue loss reported exceeded available funding.