The U.S. Department of Agriculture is making additional disaster assistance available to agricultural producers, including producers impacted by flooding and excessive moisture. Through WHIP+, USDA is helping producers recover from losses related to 2018 and 2019 natural disasters.

USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) opened signup on March 23 for producers to apply for eligible losses of drought and excess moisture.

In June 2019, more than $3 billion was made available through a disaster relief package passed by Congress and signed by President Trump.

In December 2019, Congress passed, and President Trump signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 that provides an additional $1.5 billion for the continuation of disaster assistance program delivery.

The bill added excessive moisture as qualifying losses for WHIP+ assistance.

To be eligible for WHIP+, producers must have suffered losses of certain crops, trees, bushes, or vines in counties with a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or a Secretarial Disaster Designation (primary counties only) for the following named natural disaster events; hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, typhoons, volcanic activity, snowstorms, wildfires, and now excessive moisture that occurred in 2018 or 2019.

Also, losses located in a county not designated by the secretary of agriculture as a primary county may be eligible if the producer provides documentation showing that the loss was due to a qualifying natural disaster event.

Further information is available by calling the Ellsworth County FSA Office, 402 W. 15th St. – Suite 2, Ellsworth. The telephone number is (785) 472-3166.