AMITE — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, visited the USDA office in Amite on Friday afternoon to announce that 2,100 offices across the country will reopen.

"As our farmers are harvesting right now, without the checks they are getting from this office behind me, they can't make their plans and plant for next year. So, it really did become a food supply issue," Rollins said.

$3 billion in financial assistance for farmers has been on hold for more than three weeks due to the government shutdown. Now those funds can be processed, as thousands of USDA employees return to work after being furloughed.

Each office will have two employees, 5 days a week.

"So, unlike SNAP funding, our food stamp program, which we know will end on November 1st, and that's a much bigger, more expensive program. This program, we believe, we're going to be able to keep going into the foreseeable future," Rollins said. 

Although the reopening of offices seems to be a step in the right direction, farmers still have concerns.

"I'm very, very grateful that it's happening. I'm grateful for the work that someone figured out that they could do this, but to me, it's the bare minimum, and our farmers do not deserve the bare minimum," Farmer Nicole Liuzza said.

Nicole Liuzza is one of the owners of Liuzza Family Farm in Tangipahoa Parish. She says if the government shutdown continues, it can have a significant impact on their business.

"If people don't have the money to buy them, either because they don't have a paycheck, their SNAP benefits are delayed, anything like that, we may not be able to sell our strawberries," she said.