Texas farmers who experienced crop loss due to a two-year drought (through 2018 and 2019) may soon find relief thanks to a Congressional act. The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, was passed by Congress in December 2019. The act allows for crop production losses as a result of “drought and excessive soil moisture” in these two prior years to be eligible for the Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+). By extending this assistance, it’s hoped that 202 Texas counties which were affected will be able to obtain some much-needed help.
That being said, however, until further information is released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Texas farmers will have to wait before they can sign up for this assistance. In the interim, the Agricultural and Food Policy Center (AFPC) located at Texas A&M University (College Station) has issued a briefing paper on the act and its provisions. Director of the AFPC, Bart Fischer, advised prior forms of such assistance “had focused on a variety of other disasters but didn’t cover drought. But the FY2020 appropriations bill finally addressed that aspect of crop loss, making drought losses eligible for WHIP+.”
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Before the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Fischer identified that minimal agricultural disaster relief had been appropriated since the 2008 Farm Bill, but since the passing of the 2018 Bipartisan Budget Act, that has changed. “In response to hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria and others… Congress approved a $2.36 billion support package, which U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue used, in part, to create the Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program, or WHIP…” Fischer said, according to agfax.com. Following natural disasters in 2018 and 2019, the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019 was passed by Congress. “…that included just over $3 billion. This went toward developing the Wildfires and Hurricanes Indemnity Program Plus, or WHIP+,” Fischer said.
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It’s been identified that the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act required that a D3-to-D4 level of drought severity needs to have been declared by the U.S. Drought Monitor in the county in which the crop losses occurred for WHIP+ eligibility to occur. This means that a formal level of “Extreme Drought” needs to be acknowledged during these applicable calendar years in order for the farms to apply for assistance. Coverage levels and counties which have been affected are outlined in a map link available here, which was produced by the AFPC. It has been estimated that this amounts to approximately 97 Texas counties in 2018, 45 in the following year, and 60 across both years which could be eligible for this assistance.
