USDA will back loans of up to $175 million for seafood plants in $5 billion program

Seafood processors can seek federally guaranteed loans of up to $175 million to build, reopen or upgrade plants under a $5 billion U.S. Department of Agriculture program announced Friday. Applications open Tuesday.

The program, Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers, or SPUR, started in June as up to $500 million in payments to beef processors. The new loan version also covers poultry and seafood. It was rolled out with the America First Seafood Strategy, which the White House released the same day and which cites processing jobs "that provide the primary source of income to hundreds of rural Alaska communities."

Alaska had about 15,200 seafood processing jobs in July 2024, down from about 17,900 a year earlier, according to a First National Bank Alaska report.

Under SPUR, a bank, credit union or other commercial lender makes the loan and USDA guarantees 90% of it. Loans can run up to 40 years and may allow up to two years of deferred payments. They can pay to establish, reopen, retrofit, expand or improve a plant or to refinance debt, according to the program page.

Businesses, nonprofits, cooperatives, tribes and state and local governments can qualify if their plants operate under federal or state inspection. Companies with a market share as large as the fourth-largest firm's are excluded, as are those with owners from foreign adversary countries.

The program page says the guarantees are available "pending Congressionally approved funds." But USDA's funding notice, set for publication Tuesday, says the $5 billion comes from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act and is available beginning in fiscal 2027, which started Oct. 1. Applications will be taken until the money runs out, the notice says.

"From our crabbers in Alaska, to the lobstermen in Maine, to the great shrimpers in the Gulf of America, our nation is blessed with incredible men and women who work to bring this bounty to our plates," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

Alaska's fishermen got nothing from this summer's $11 billion farm disaster package, Alaska News reported in July. Asked about it then by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Rollins pointed to USDA's new Office of Seafood, which the department launched in April.