Second round of livestock disaster assistance released by USDA

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KVRR)– USDA releases the second round of livestock disaster assistance for losses from flooding and wildfire.

They are providing $1 billion to livestock producers to help offset increased supplemental feed costs as a result of qualifying wildfires or floods in 2023 and 2024.

This second round brings the total livestock set-aside to $2 billion.

The Emergency Livestock Relief Program, or ELRP, funding comes as part of $21 billion in weather-related assistance included in the year-end legislation passed by Congress in December.

“This $1 billion of assistance for our livestock producers is funding that we secured in the disaster assistance package earlier for ranchers who suffered from either flooding or wildfires in the ’23, ’24 timeframe,” said North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven.

Livestock producers can begin signing up on Monday and have until October 31 to apply.

Specifics of this round of livestock assistance include:

·       Producers in counties determined by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) to have qualifying floods and wildfires in 2023 and 2024 are not required to submit supporting documentation for floods and wildfires. The list of approved counties is available at fsa.usda.gov/elrp.

·       Producers in counties not listed can apply, but must provide supporting documentation to demonstrate that a qualifying wildfire or flood in 2023 or 2024.

·       Wildfire assistance is available to participants who did not receive assistance through Livestock Forage Program (LFP) or the ELRP 2023 and 2024 for drought and wildfire program delivered to producers in July of this year.

Additional information is available here.