Congress
Approves Agriculture Disaster Aid After Prolonged Debate, NCGA Notes
(10-13-04)
Under an agreement
reached by House and Senate appropriations conferees last weekend,
$2.9 billion in agriculture disaster aid will be provided to growers
who have experienced crop damages from recent hurricanes, drought,
flooding, frost and other weather-related causes. The agriculture
aid package was added to an emergency assistance bill for hurricane
victims.
National Corn
Growers Association (NCGA) President Leon Corzine said the provision
may provide short-term relief for farmers who experienced crop losses
due to adverse weather, but he added that reforms to the federal
crop disaster program are still needed to address future disasters.
“Farmers
in many parts of the country are seeing record crops this fall,
but others have been hit hard by bad weather,” he said. “This
disaster aid will bring some welcome relief to those producers who
have not had the record crops seen in other parts of the country.
However, we believe it is important to continue to lobby Congress
for reforms to the crop disaster program. There are inequities for
crop insurance participants and assistance for insured growers with
repetitive shallow losses. These inequities need to be fixed.”
Growers in disaster-designated
counties who lost more than 35 percent of their crop in either 2003,
2004 or 2005 are now eligible to receive disaster payments. Similar
to the 2001-2002 Crop Disaster Program, the bill limits assistance
to one crop year in coordination with crop insurance and salvaged
crops. Assistance may be paid for up to 95 percent of the crop’s
value. Qualifying crop losses for the 2005 crop are limited to only
those losses caused by a hurricane or tropical storm of the 2004
hurricane season.
Corzine noted that the Conservation Security Program will be capped
at $6 billion in order to provide necessary funding for the disaster
assistance package. He said NCGA does not support looting farm bill
programs to support disaster assistance packages.
“It is
unfortunate that Congress raided a program authorized in the last
farm bill,” he said. “We hope this is not a signal that
further cuts may occur for other reasons.”