September 22, 2010
www.gfb.org
Vol. 28 No. 38
USDA TO PROVIDE AD HOC DISASTER ASSISTANCE FOR 2009 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week announced a plan to provide $630 million in disaster assistance payments administratively under its Section 32 program for losses that occurred during 2009. Under an agreement between Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and the Obama administration, the USDA will provide $550 million in disaster assistance to cotton, rice, soybean and sweet potato growers in counties declared disaster areas for 2009, $60 million for poultry growers affected by the Pilgrim’s Pride bankruptcy and $20 million for aquaculture producers affected by high feed costs. In return, Lincoln agreed to remove from a small business bill her provision for $1.5 billion in disaster assistance for agricultural producers. To be eligible for the crop assistance, crop losses must be due to excessive rain and growers must show a 5 percent quality or yield quantity loss. In Georgia, 130 counties received USDA disaster designations in 2009 due to excess rain. The ones that did not were: Barrow, Butts, Camden, Charlton, Clarke, Clayton, Columbia, Dawson, DeKalb, Fayette, Forsyth, Glynn, Greene, Gwinnett, Habersham, Hall, Hancock, Jasper, Liberty, Lincoln, McDuffie, McIntosh, Richmond, Rockdale, Stephens, Taliaferro, Warren, White and Wilkes. The payment rates are $17.70 per acre for upland cotton, $15.62 per acre for soybeans, $155.41 per acre for sweet potatoes, $31.93 per acre for long grain rice and $52.46 per acre for medium/short grain rice. The USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) will establish regulations applying income requirements and payment limitations consistent with other disaster programs. Georgia Reps. John Barrow Sanford Bishop, Jim Marshall and David Scott were among a group of U.S. congressmen who wrote to the USDA asking that peanuts be included in the crop assistance program and that the agency do so at a fair, per-acre rate determined in the same manner the other eligible commodity rates were determined. To be eligible for aid under the Lost Poultry Contract Assistance Program, producers must have lost their contract with Pilgrim’s Pride between May 1, 2008, and July 1, 2010, and they must have been unable to enter into a subsequent contract. The USDA will provide a grant to all states with affected producers. Payments will be based on the producer’s most recent 12 months receipts multiplied by a payment factor to limit total payouts to $60 million and to ensure that no producer’s payment is more than 95 percent of their receipts from the previous 12 months. Average adjusted gross income and payment limitations consistent with other disaster programs will apply.