Disaster Aid Checks Coming for 2020-22

OMAHA (DTN) -- Farmers and livestock producers hit by natural disasters going back to 2020 will start to see the last of $1.75 billion in disaster aid from USDA starting this week.

The department on Wednesday stated it is "closing out" some of its disaster relief programs from different phases of the Emergency Relief Program (ERP), which were funded by ad-hoc disaster funds for losses from 2020-2022.

While USDA is wrapping up disaster payments over the past three years, there are moves in Congress to provide ad-hoc disaster aid for natural disaster losses in 2023 but no legislation has been passed for such aid yet.

ERP PHASE TWO

The biggest chunk of payments being sent out comes under Farm Service Agency's Phase Two of the Emergency Relief Program (ERP). Closing out the ERP, USDA is paying out more than $1.17 billion in disaster payments to farmers who faced losses from natural disasters in 2020 and 2021. ERP Phase Two primarily supports farmers who grow crops not covered by federal crop insurance or FSA's Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP). The aid was primarily meant to target smaller producers of specialty crops.

ERP Phase Two had caused some initial complaints by producers because payments were based on IRS Schedule F income levels rather than crop insurance documents. Producers had to demonstrate their crop production and prices for those crops.

Earlier USDA had sent out $7.45 billion to more than 217,000 producers under the ERP Phase One to producers. Breaking down that $7.45 billion in payments already distributed, the top states for payments were: North Dakota at $1.16 billion, Texas at $917.8 million and South Dakota at $569.9 million.

EMERGENCY LIVESTOCK RELIEF PROGRAM

FSA also will send out $581 million to livestock producers who suffered from drought and wildfires in 2021 and 2022 under the Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP), USDA stated.

For producers who faced grazing losses in 2022, USDA is expected to issue an estimated $465.4 million in payments. Ranchers will receive payments based on increases in supplemental feed costs. Those payments will be automatically sent to producers with no new applications required, USDA stated. To expedite payments and determine eligibility, FSA is using data on livestock investors and drought-affected forage acreage, or restrictions on grazing days due to wildfires already reported by ranchers when they applied for the Livestock Forage Disaster Program.

For 2021 losses, ranchers will receive checks amounting to 20% of producers' initial ELRP payments. In April 2022, USDA initially processed more than 100,000 payments to producers under phase one of the program.

For more details on USDA's Emergency Relief Program, go to https://www.fsa.usda.gov/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

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