‘This Is Not Working’: USDA Relief Funds Questioned By Lawmakers

Many farmers seeking federal relief for disaster-stricken crops are getting smaller payments than they would have in the past. Others who typically got less are getting more. This has agricultural leaders in Congress raising a red flag. 

This all goes back to the USDA’s Emergency Relief Program. The rules covering its payments for 2022 crop losses came out a few months ago. Frank Lucas, Oklahoma’s point man for agricultural delegation, says this is maddening.

Lucas says it’s bad enough that farmers have to deal with unpredictable weather, they shouldn’t also be at the mercy of the administration’s social justice agenda.

“I have had some very pointed discussions with the Secretary (of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack) in committee hearings. I am trying to get across to anyone and everyone in the appropriations process that this is not working,” Lucas said. “By the way, it’s not fair.”

With just under $4 billion authorized by Congress to offset more than $10 billion in projected 2022 crop losses, USDA added a so-called ‘progressive payment factor’ to its relief payment formula. This is an attempt to make sure smaller and historically underserved farms could survive.

But the new formula means the largest producers are now getting less, and in a bipartisan, bicameral letter to the Secretary of Agriculture last month, Lucas and dozens of others said, “These factors have resulted in a system of winners and losers that punish the farm families hit hardest by disasters.”

“USDA decided, probably with instructions from the White House, to use the money the way they’ve done everything else. That is, instead of following production, to direct it toward -shall we say- environmental and social justice,” Lucas said.

It may be too late to change the 2022 payments, but Lucas says the administration's approach is wrong.

“Whether it will be the appropriations process next year or when we write the Farm Bill, we’re going to help them understand their mistakes,” Lucas said.

When exactly the Farm Bill gets written is unclear. It should have been completed last year, or at least be in its last stages now, but without an agreement on full-year appropriations, it’s on an indefinite hold.