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Perdue: farmers will be pleased with disaster relief

The USDA is providing disaster aid payments for farmers impacted by disasters in 2018 and 2019.

Under the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Plus (WHIP+) program, farmers who lost crops to hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters in 2018 will receive 100% of their calculated value and payments for 2019 will be limited to an initial 50%. Farmers will have an opportunity to receive the remaining 50% after January.

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue, not going into details about the programs, told reporters Monday he believes farmers will be pleased with disaster assistance.

“Your producers that were in the path that had disasters and had too much rain, hurricanes, volcanic activity, or tornadoes, will benefit from that,” he says.

Perdue says there are more details coming regarding disaster relief that will compensate losses caused by prevented planting.  

“Our prevented plant acres were virtually double what we have ever seen, and we expect to have a top off provision there for our prevented plant crop insurance and those details will be out Wednesday,” he says. 

But, a USDA press release says growers with flooding prevented planting claims in 2019 will receive a supplemental disaster payment equal to 10 percent of their prevented planting indemnity and producers who purchased harvest price option coverage will receive an additional payment of 5 percent.

The $19 billion disaster aid package was signed by President Trump in June. Perdue said it took three months to put the rules and regulations together.

He announced the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity plus (WHIP+) program during the NASDA meeting Monday. NASDA CEO Barb Glenn says they’re grateful for the USDA’s swift action on the disaster relief program, especially in this challenging year.