U.S. Department of Agriculture announced ranchers with approved applications for the 2021 Livestock Forage Disaster Program will soon receive relief payments for increases in supplemental feed costs through the Farm Service Agency's new Emergency Livestock Relief Program.
According to a March 31 USDA news release, in September 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act which gives $10 billion in assistance to agricultural producers impacted by eligible natural disasters during 2020 and 2021. Emergency Livestock Relief Program is part of FSA’s implementation of the Act.
“Producers of grazing livestock experienced catastrophic losses of available forage as well as higher costs for supplemental feed in 2021. Unfortunately, the conditions driving these losses have not improved for many and have even worsened for some, as drought spreads across the U.S.,” Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said in the release. “In order to deliver much-needed assistance as efficiently as possible, phase one of the ELRP will use certain data from the Livestock Forage Disaster Program, allowing USDA to distribute payments within days to livestock producers."
The Act targets $750 million to provide livestock producers assistance for losses due to drought or wildfires from the calendar year 2021, according to the release.
"To be eligible for an ELRP payment under phase one of program delivery, livestock producers must have suffered grazing losses in a county rated by the U.S. Drought Monitor as having a D2 (severe drought) for eight consecutive weeks or a D3 (extreme drought) or higher level of drought intensity during the 2021 calendar year, and have applied and been approved for 2021 LFP," USDA officials say, according to the release. "Additionally, producers whose permitted grazing on federally managed lands was disallowed due to wildfire are also eligible for ELRP payments, if they applied and were approved for 2021 LFP."
Phase one will take advantage of Federal Crop Insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance program data to calculate the initial round of payments, according to the release. The second phase will fill the gaps to cover producers who fit the eligibility requirements and those who did not take part in the existing risk management programs.
