By Daniel Munch
Key Takeaways
- USDA has delivered $6.7 billion in SDRP payments for 2023–2024 disaster losses, providing needed relief, though nearly 60% of authorized funding remains to be distributed.
- USDA’s decision to increase the SDRP payment factor from 35% to 70%, along with extending the application deadline to Aug. 12, will provide additional support to growers still recovering from disasters.
- Disaster assistance timelines vary, with farmers in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Hawaii still awaiting payments as block grant programs are still being finalized.
- While this assistance is a welcome step, a new round of losses is already emerging without dedicated support, including an estimated $5.7 billion in uncovered crop losses in 2025 and early 2026 impacts such as a Florida freeze exceeding $3.1 billion, alongside expanding drought conditions.
USDA is increasing disaster assistance for farmers still recovering from the severe weather events of 2023 and 2024, raising Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) payments from 35% to 70% and triggering a second round of payments. The change will accelerate delivery of the $16.09 billion in authorized aid and help reduce a portion of uncovered losses from recent disasters. However, while this support is still working its way to producers, some more than two years after losses occurred, new disaster impacts are already building across the country, highlighting the gap between when losses happen and when assistance arrives.
Background
U.S. agriculture faced a series of compounding natural disasters across 2023 and 2024, including atmospheric river flooding in California, prolonged drought across the Plains and West, major wildfires such as the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas and Oklahoma, Midwest flooding along the Mississippi River system and multiple hurricanes, including Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which caused significant damage to specialty crops and infrastructure across the Southeast. Together, these events created widespread and overlapping losses across both crop and livestock sectors, with AFBF estimating roughly $41 billion in crop losses across the two years, including a substantial share falling outside existing risk management programs.
In response, Congress authorized disaster assistance through the American Relief Act of 2025, including $16.09 billion for crop, tree and vine losses under SDRP. SDRP builds on earlier ad hoc programs such as the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+) and the Emergency Relief Program (ERP), using a framework that compares a producer’s expected crop value to post-disaster production and provides a partial payment on the remaining loss.
The program is delivered in two stages. Stage 1 uses existing crop insurance and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) records to calculate losses and apply a flat payment factor, originally set at 35%, allowing for faster delivery of assistance. Stage 2 extends support to losses not fully captured by those programs, including shallow losses, quality loss, uninsured crops and certain specialty crop, tree and quality-related losses, often relying on USDA-assigned yields, prices or plant values where farm-level data are unavailable.
It’s important to note, not all farmers are receiving assistance through SDRP. Under the American Relief Act, certain states, including Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts, are delivering disaster assistance through state-administered block grants rather than the federal SDRP process. As a result, farmers with losses in these states are not currently eligible for SDRP payments, and are still waiting for aid as block grant programs are finalized.
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