The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association (FFVA) was among more than 140 U.S. agriculture organizations that recently urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to revise the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) for 2022.
In 2022, President Biden signed into law appropriations legislation providing $3.74 billion in ERP assistance to agricultural producers impacted by numerous natural disasters in 2022.
FFVA and the other organizations wrote the USDA: “We are very concerned about two newly introduced ERP 2022 provisions outlined in program guidance released on October 27: (1) progressive payment factors used to prorate payments; and (2) the method used to incorporate producer-paid insurance premiums…
“These two programmatic changes will penalize many producers throughout the country. In the case of the progressive payment factor, we oppose a policy that delivers the least amount of benefit to those who have lost the most outside of the payment limits provided in statute. While we appreciate the funding restraints under which ERP 2022 was developed, we believe that USDA should instead aim to provide more equitable support for losses of all magnitudes. This can be achieved by using a single, uniform factor, as USDA has done in the past. With regards to incorporating the producer-paid premiums, this change will keep some growers from qualifying for any assistance and create a significant disparity of payments among producers.
“We are also concerned that Track 2 of ERP 2022 continues USDA’s burdensome reliance on Schedule F or equivalent tax documents to determine potential assistance, even though these documents often do not provide a full picture of crop revenue or losses for producers who primarily use cash accounting methods, and the approach does not follow the statute in compensating for crop losses.
“Although Phase I of ERP 2020 and ERP 2021 were not perfect, they were well received by farmers experiencing losses and provided a more equitable approach to assistance than ERP 2022. We urge USDA to alter the current program calculations in a manner that more fully meets the needs of all producers.”
Florida Farm Bureau, Florida Citrus Mutual and Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Association were among the other groups signing the letter.
Source: FFVA
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