SBA brings Grocery Guarantee loans to Washington farmers as state costs pile up

Washington farmers are getting squeezed from every direction, and Olympia has no plans to help. A brutal state regulatory environment, some of the highest operating costs in the country, and tariff uncertainty on inputs have put food producers in a spot that state Democrats have spent the last legislative session actively making worse. The federal government showed up in Sumner on Tuesday with something else.

Bill Briggs, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), made the case for the new Grocery Guarantee program at Knutson Farms in Sumner last week, pitching it as a direct line of capital relief for farms and food supply chain businesses that have struggled to get lenders to take a chance on them. The program backs 90% of loans made to qualifying food producers, shifting the risk away from banks and toward the federal government with the explicit goal of expanding domestic food supply.

Washington farms facing a wall of costs Olympia refuses to fix

The visit landed in a state where the Trump administration has already been pushing back against Washington’s regulatory war on agriculture. Briggs heard an earful from farmers about what it actually costs to operate here.

“I hear a lot about cost, the cost of doing business in general,” Briggs said on The Jason Rantz Show on Seattle Red 770 AM. “Washington state is the fifth most expensive state in the country in terms of doing business. And I heard about regulation. I was talking with one gentleman. He said, ‘you know, this is part of what the President’s agenda is all about. It’s about tax cuts, it’s about fair trade, it’s about deregulation, energy dominance.’ You have all four of those things going together now, and that’s why we think we’re heading into the right direction of the economy. And there’s a lot of positive news.”

That cost burden in Washington state is real and burdensome. Washington ranks fifth nationally for the cost of doing business, and Olympia Democrats have spent the last legislative session making it worse with billions in new taxes piled on top of an already brutal B&O tax and minimum wage structure.

Tariff pressures and the SBA’s onshoring alternative

Small food businesses caught in the middle of the current tariff environment are also on Briggs’ radar.

Input costs have climbed for producers who can’t simply pass those increases to consumers without losing business. For those struggling to find U.S.-based suppliers, Briggs pointed to a free federal resource most haven’t heard of.

“What we did at SBA, under Administrator [Kelly] Loeffler, is we created the Making America Great Again onshoring portal,” Briggs said. “If somebody goes to SBA.gov/onshoring, they can find a listing of over one million U.S.-based suppliers and producers for all sorts of needs. And what we found is that people go, oh wow, I want to make sure one, I’m enlisted there, and two, I didn’t know there was that free resource. I’ve had multiple examples where folks go out and say, oh, this is great, then I don’t have to deal with any concerns about any potential tariff issues.”

The Grocery Guarantee is a long-term bet on domestic food supply

The Grocery Guarantee isn’t a quick fix for the family trying to make ends meet at the grocery store this week. Briggs acknowledged that. The program is built on the theory that expanding access to capital for food producers grows domestic supply over time, which puts real pressure on prices at the checkout line. Seattle-area families have already been cutting proteins, store-hopping, and changing how they eat entirely just to manage grocery costs, and the pressure isn’t letting up.

“The big picture here is that we work with our lenders, and what we’re trying to do is make them comfortable making loans to our food producers and food manufacturers,” Briggs said. “And we see that as part of driving the affordability of groceries in general for Americans, and that’s what we’re doing and I’m highlighting here today in Washington State.”

For Washington farmers trying to grow while the state keeps tightening the vise, a 90 percent federally backed loan may be the only realistic option. Washington food producers can connect with the program through their local SBA office.

Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Seattle Red on 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason Rantz on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.