The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association is sounding the alarm on federal funding freezes.
The group wrote a letter to Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins asking for the immediate release of the funding for previously promised Dairy Business Innovation Initiatives.
The freezes stopped the spending of nearly $30 million at 420 dairy businesses across the country. That includes Hidden Springs Creamery, which was counting on those funds for a new $90,000 freezer that is getting installed.
According to Hidden Springs Creamery’s Travis Forgues, “We also have to pay for it all upfront before you get reimbursed. So, they’re pouring it as we speak. Like, the process of this going on has me now responsible for the $90,000 that I was, in the business plan, planning on being paid back for. I just have a very hard time believing the federal government’s going to default on its own agreements, long-term, but it is a shocking situation when, out of the blue, we get a phone call while the concrete is pouring for projects that we’ve been approved on that they’re no going to pay— that they’re freezing the funds.”
Forgues says that he also has a loan through USDA’s REAP program for a solar array that came online in January. He says that funding for that has also stopped.
