Small Hog Operation Payment Program

This interim rule amends the regulations for the Small Hog Operations Payment (SHOP) Program. Enactment of the 1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act has made more funds available for the SHOP program. This will allow the Department to spend up to $175 million (including the $50 million allocated in the original, February 10, 1999, (64 FR 6495) interim rule). Payments will be made to producers in the order in which they were filed, to the extent that funds are available. As amended in this rule, the SHOP program regulations would allow hog operations to receive up to $5,000 in total payments at a total rate of $10 per each eligible slaughter hog and $3.60 for eligible feeder pigs sold during the relevant marketing period. Also, this rule expands the program's eligibility provisions to allow operations to qualify so long as the operation did not sell 2,500 or more hogs during the relevant marketing period. In the original rule, the limit was set at less than 1,000 hogs. SHOP program payments already received by an eligible operation will be deducted from the expanded eligible amount an operation may have under the new rules.