.gif)
WASHINGTON - The U. S Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide more than $3 billion to commodity and specialty crop producers impacted by natural disaster events in 2022. Eligible impacted producers can apply for financial assistance through the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) 2022. The program will help offset the financial impacts of crop yield and value losses from qualifying disasters occurring in 2022.
“2022 was another year of weather-related challenges — for some, the third consecutive year or more in a row. The financial impact to a family farm or ranch in one year is significant but the cumulative impact of multiple years can be devastating,” said USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Zach Ducheneaux. “In our continued commitment to improving our delivery of emergency relief assistance, we have further refined our Emergency Relief Program 2022 delivery process. Instead of two separate program phases, we will now run two tracks concurrently increasing our efficiencies in application and payment processing while ensuring equitable program delivery. We also listened to important input from producers and stakeholders and have enhanced ERP 2022 provisions to ensure shallow loss impacts on revenue are considered.”
Background
On Dec. 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117328) that provides about $3.7 billion in financial assistance for agricultural producers impacted by eligible natural disasters that occurred in calendar year 2022.
ERP 2022 covers losses to crops, trees, bushes and vines due to qualifying, calendar year 2022 natural disaster events including wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freeze (including a polar vortex), smoke exposure, excessive moisture, qualifying drought and related conditions.
ERP 2022 program benefits will be delivered to eligible producers through a two-track process. FSA intends to make both tracks available to producers at the same time. This two-track approach enables USDA to: _ Streamline the application process.
_ Reduce the paperwork burden on producers.
_ Proactively include provisions for underserved producers who have not been well served by past emergency relief efforts.
_ Encourage producer participation in existing risk management programs to mitigate the impacts of future severe weather events.
It’s important to note that disaster-impacted producers may be eligible for ERP 2022 assistance under one or both tracks. To avoid duplicative benefits, if a producer applies for both tracks, the Track 2 payment calculation will take into account any payments received through Track 1.
Further details on the respective track payments can be found on the Citizen website www. coloradocountycitizen. com.
