Senator Marshall Leads Letter and Introduces Legislation For Agricultural Disaster Relief

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. led a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration urging leadership to include funding for a disaster program to address 2023 agricultural losses as they begin the stages of drafting the Fiscal Year 2025 funding bill.

Simultaneously, Senator Marshall introduced legislation with a specific aim to ensure proper guardrails on the funding. This legislation addresses concerns with USDA's emergency relief payment program, which applied a "progressive payment factor" that ultimately paid more to absentee landlords than full-time farm families. The legislation would require USDA to provide these funds in a manner that mirrors a previous, widely praised, program.

The American Farm Bureau Federation estimated that agricultural losses in 2023 exceeded $21 billion, with roughly half of this amount not covered by crop insurance or the noninsurance crop disaster assistance program. These severe losses significantly harm farmers, ranchers, and producers nationwide.

"The National Sorghum Producers strongly supports Senator Marshall's legislation and letter to create an Emergency Relief Program for 2023 losses," National Sorghum Producers Chairman Craig Meeker said."Farm and ranch families from across the country were hurt by natural disasters last year but perhaps none so much as those producers dealing with multiple years of losses due to severe and chronic drought. Senator Marshall's request would ensure that ERP is properly implemented so help gets to the farm and ranch families most impacted by production losses. We commend Senator Marshall for his hard work and urge his colleagues in Congress to pass this important legislation."

You may click HERE to read Senator Marshall's full bill text.

You may click HERE or read Senator Marshall's full letter below.

Dear Chair Heinrich and Ranking Member Hoeven,

We write to urge you to include robust funding for an agricultural disaster program to address 2023 agricultural losses as you begin drafting the fiscal year (FY) 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. We also request that you include the attached legislative text to ensure this funding improves upon former emergency relief payment programs and provides disaster payments equitably and timely.

Recently, the American Farm Bureau Federation estimated that agricultural losses in 2023 exceeded $21 billion, with roughly half of this amount not covered by crop insurance or the noninsurance crop disaster assistance program. Although the losses reported by Farm Bureau were nationwide, large swaths of the country have endured multiple years of severe and chronic drought that has most recently resulted in one of the worst wildfires in U.S. history.

As fires continue to rage across drought-stricken grasslands every spring, the production losses are compounding for farm and ranch families living and working in these drought regions. While we had hoped the Farm Bill would be modernized and enacted in a way that strengthens the farm safety net to avoid the dramatic need for ad hoc disaster programs, our nations' farmers and ranchers simply cannot afford to wait on its stymied passage.

Given the history of funding from previous disaster programs, farm and ranch families who suffered catastrophic losses in 2022 expected similar relief to come from USDA Emergency Relief Program (ERP) payments. Unfortunately, the current USDA departed from congressional intent and made unworkable and unnecessary changes to the Emergency Relief Program. This unfair implementation deprived full-time farm families from receiving their expected relief. Despite these changes we think Congress should provide needed assistance to farmers and ranchers devastated by natural disasters in 2023. However, it must be done with appropriate guard rails dictated by Congress.

In light of all of this, we respectfully urge you to include a robust agricultural disaster program for 2023 losses in the FY2025 agricultural appropriations bill with the attached legislative text to ensure that the program is not implemented in the same inequitable manner as the 2022 program.

Sincerely,

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