<\/p>\n
State Representative Jake Banta (R-Erie) announced that $500,000 in emergency funding will be used to purchase, process and transport approximately 350 tons of grapes from 11 Erie County growers whose contracts were unexpectedly terminated earlier this year by grape juice manufacturer Refresco.<\/p>\n
The funding, administered through the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System (PASS), will provide immediate relief to local grape growers who were left without a market for their crops after Refresco abruptly canceled contracts with farmers in the Lake Erie region in March.<\/p>\n
Under the program, grapes purchased from Erie County family farms will be processed into 100% grape juice concentrate and distributed to Feeding Pennsylvania member food banks, helping both farmers and families facing food insecurity across the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn March, many of these growers were blindsided when Refresco terminated contracts with little warning,\u201d Banta said. \u201cFarmers who had spent the entire year cultivating their crop suddenly found themselves with no market for their grapes and the possibility of losing tens of thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The emergency investment follows legislative action taken by Banta earlier this year. In May, he introduced House Bill 2521, legislation intended to expand the state\u2019s ability to respond to agricultural crises. The bill would authorize the Agricultural Business Development Center to provide short-term funding for a broader range of agricultural emergencies, including severe and unexpected market disruptions like those experienced by Erie County grape growers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Representative Jake Banta (R-Erie) announced that $500,000 in emergency funding will be used to purchase, process and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[16520,136,142,138,137,101023,101024,101025],"class_list":["post-233949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-emergency-funding","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-grape-growers","tag-jake-banta","tag-refresco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}