August 04, 2020

Jenny Sanchez:
Hi, I’m Jenny Sanchez. And this is Sullivan 180 presents…Take 5! Our guest today is Gerald Skoda. Gerry, thank you for joining me. Could you please introduce yourself and share a bit about what you do?

Gerald Skoda:
Yes. I’m Gerry Skoda. I’m the retired executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension, 23 years ago. But since then I still do a lot of things. I have a farm and I do tax preparation, and I have an agricultural consulting business, and I do a lot of volunteering.

Jenny Sanchez:
Fantastic. So what are some of the challenges farmers have been facing during this time?

Gerald Skoda:
Well, the main thing that’s happened to farmers is the loss of markets because of the lack of transportation and the marketing activities. They been able to produce the items, but they haven’t necessarily been able to sell them. So it has been really tough on the dairy farmers, especially, and now that we’re into the vegetable season I’m sure that some of the vegetable farmers are experiencing the same problems.

Jenny Sanchez:
That’s understandable. There are two types of funds available to help farmers. Could you please expand upon those?

Gerald Skoda:
Yeah, the first one that came out was the PPP, which guaranteed on a, it was a grant program if they use the money to pay their employees. But they have to have employees that they give W2’s to, to be able to get through that application process. And the other is the EEIDL that is a loan and partial grant program through the Small Business Administration. And both of those programs require an application. They require attachments of things like tax returns and scans of your driver’s license and things like that. And the problem is, is some farmers didn’t know that much about the programs. Some farmers attempted to, uh, apply for those two programs and weren’t successful in getting through. And then the ones that you know, have the computers they’re not necessarily either up to date or they have the scanning ability. And so most of the farmers that I work with experienced difficulty getting through that process.

Jenny Sanchez:
Okay. Do you have any positive experiences that have come out of this you would like to share?

Gerald Skoda:
Oh yeah. The positive is you. I complained to Sandra Gerry one day that I was very frustrated because I didn’t have the time to help as many farmers as I could. And she hooked me up with Sullivan 180 and Sandra volunteered you to do this. And so now you go to the Cornell Cooperative Extension building, meet with farmers, input their process, and some people have had their grants the same day that you’ve entered the material. And that’s great. It’s putting much needed money in the pockets of local farmers. And these are programs that they may or may not have necessarily taken advantage of.

Jenny Sanchez:
So if you are a farmer, know a farmer who could benefit from applying for the paycheck protection program or the economic disaster loan, please contact me at (845) 295-2686. Gerry, thank you for being here and for letting us know your involvement and what you’ve been doing to help Sullivan County.

Gerald Skoda:
You’re welcome.