(NAFB) – Information updated by USDA’s Economic Research Service Wednesday shows 65 percent of Paycheck Protection Program 2020 agriculture funds went crop farms, with the latter for livestock.

Last year, farmers and ranchers could use forgivable loans from the program to help keep employees on payroll and offset some of their operating costs. The maximum PPP loan amount was 2.5 times the monthly average profit plus payroll and eligible overhead expenses, such as the employer’s share of insurance payments and unemployment taxes. If used on eligible expenses within the first 24 weeks of payment, PPP loans were fully forgiven.

Individual Small Business Administration loan data indicated that almost 121,000 farm operations applied for a total of $6.0 billion in PPP loans in 2020. That accounted for 17 percent of presumed-eligible farm operations. Out of the total PPP loans paid to farm operations in 2020, $3.9 billion went to crop operations, and the remaining $2.1 billion went to livestock operations.