State outlines BGAP flood-recovery awards, monitoring and set‑asides for agriculture

Brett Long, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic Development, told the Agriculture Committee on Thursday, Jan. 23 that the Business Emergency Gap Assistance Program, known as BGAP, was created to get recovery funds quickly to businesses and nonprofits damaged by flooding.

"So yes, I'm here to talk about the business emergency gap assistance program, which is really kind of 3 programs wrapped into 1," Long said, describing BGAP’s structure and who is eligible.

The BGAP program began as a flood-recovery fund and has been run in separate rounds. Long told the committee BGAP 1.0 started with a roughly $20,000,000 appropriation plus about $436,000 from license-plate and other proceeds, for a total near $20,436,000. BGAP 1.0 awarded about 560 grants to 538 businesses, with an average award near $33,000; applicants self-classified industries and about 134 awards were identified as agriculture.

Why it matters: the program directs federal and state resources to businesses and farms that suffered physical flood damage — not to business interruption — and includes explicit set‑asides for agricultural operations and BIPOC awardees in later rounds. That affects how recovery dollars flow to rural communities and farm operations hit by recent storms.

How the program works and who qualified

Long said awards are paid against “net uncovered damage.” Applicants submitted repair or relocation estimates and disclosed…