USDA Provides Disaster Assistance Update

USDA provided an update on the upcoming disaster assistance at this week’s Cattle Industry Convention. 

The assistance is for agricultural producers impacted by weather-related disasters in 2020 and 2021. 

“Over the past two years, as agricultural producers struggled with the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, they’ve also been hit hard by more frequent and intense natural disasters,” says Robert Bonnie, USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation. 

USDA intends to streamline the process for producers, and the agency will distribute at least half the available $750 million by the end of March. 

The program to to assist crop producers will follow a process similar to that of the livestock assistance with the first phase of implementation this spring. 

The first phase will use existing Federal Crop Insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program data as the basis for calculating initial payments. 

That will help speed up implementation and encourage participation in these programs too.

(Story Courtesy of NAFB News Service)