The U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture is offering another installment – also known as a phase – to assist commodity and specialty crop producers impacted by natural disaster events in 2020 and 2021.
More than 18,000 producers will soon receive new or updated pre-filled disaster applications to offset eligible crop losses.
FSA will begin mailing pre-filled applications in late August to producers who have potentially eligible losses and:
- Received crop insurance indemnities for qualifying 2020 and 2021 disaster events after May 2, 2022.
- Received crop insurance indemnities associated with Nursery, Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO), Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX), Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) and Margin Protection (MP) policies.
- New primary policyholders not included in the initial insured producer Phase 1 mailing from May 25, 2022, because their claim records had not been filled.
- Certain 2020 prevent plant losses related to qualifying 2020 disaster events that had only been recorded in crop insurance records as related to 2019 adverse weather events and, as such, were not previously provided in applications sent earlier this year.
- New Substantial Beneficial Interest (SBI) records, including SBIs where tax identification numbers were corrected.
Producers are expected to receive assistance direct deposited into their bank account within three business days after they sign and return the pre-filled application to the FSA county office and the county office enters the application into the system.
Before applying any program payment factors or eligibility criteria, it is estimated that this next installment phase may generate about $756 million in assistance. Approximately $6.4 billion has already been distributed to 165,000 producers through USDA’s Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Emergency Relief Program (ERP).
