Agriculture Priorities and Allocations System

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is establishing the regulation for the Agriculture Priorities and Allocations System (APAS). Food is a critical commodity essential to the national defense (including civil emergency preparedness and response). To avoid civilian hardship during national defense emergencies, it may be necessary to regulate the production, processing, storage, and wholesale distribution of food. Through the APAS rule, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will respond to requests to place priority ratings on contracts or orders (establishing priority on which contracts or orders are filled first) for agriculture commodities up through the wholesale levels, including agriculture production equipment, and allocate resources, as specified in the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950, as amended, if the necessity arises. FSA is implementing this rule as a way to redirect the agriculture commodities and resources to areas of hardship or potential hardship due to national emergencies. In most cases, there is likely to be no economic impact in filling priority orders because it would generally just be changing the timing in which orders are completed.