By: Juan Ramirez
Overview:
Agriculture-related disasters and disaster designations are quite common. Many counties in the United States have been designated as disaster areas in the past several years, even in years of record crop production.
The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to designate counties as disaster areas to make emergency (EM) loans available to producers suffering losses in those counties and in counties that are contiguous to a designated county. In addition to EM loan eligibility, other emergency assistance programs, such as Farm Service Agency (FSA) disaster assistance programs, have historically used disaster designations as an eligibility trigger.
Types of Disaster Designations:
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretarial disaster desig-nation;
- Presidential major disaster and Presidential emergency declara-tion;
- FSA Administrator’s Physical Loss Notification (APLN); and
- Quarantine designation by the Secretary under the Plant Protection Act or animal quarantine laws.
USDA Secretarial disaster designations must be requested of the Secretary of Agriculture by a governor or the governor’s authorized representative, by an Indian Tribal Council leader or by an FSA State Executive Director (SED). The Secretarial disaster designation is the most widely used. There is an expedited process for drought. The general process and the expedited process are described in further detail under “Secretarial Disaster Designation Process.”
Presidential major disaster declarations, which must be requested of the President by a governor, are administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A Presidential major disaster declaration can be made within days or hours of the initial request. FEMA immediately notifies FSA of the primary counties named in a Presidential declaration. An FSA APLN is for physical losses only, such as a building destroyed by a tornado. Livestock-related losses are considered physical losses. An APLN is requested of FSA’s Administrator by an FSA SED.
Process
STEP 1
The governor, Indian Tribal Council leader or FSA – SED makes a request in writing to the Secretary of Agriculture within three months of the ending date of the disaster.
STEP 2
FSA county offices assemble required agricultural loss information for the Loss Assessment Report.
STEP 3
The County Emergency Board reviews the Loss Assessment Report to determine if a 30 percent production loss of at least one crop occurred, and makes a recommendation to approve, defer or reject the request.
STEP 4
The State Emergency Board reviews the request and the County Emergency Board’s recommendation. The State Emergency Board’s recommendation is submitted to FSA’s national headquarters.
STEP 5
FSA national headquarters reviews the loss information on the Loss Assessment Report, determines eligibility and prepares a package, including the letter of approval or disapproval, to be signed by the Secretary.
For More Information
For more information about FSA disaster programs, visit http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov or contact your local FSA office. To find your local FSA office, visit http://offices.usda.gov.
Visit www.lfrinc.org or www.flowerhill.institute/usda-fsa
If you want to know if you were in a designated disaster site, click here:
“This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, under agreement number FSA23CPT0012915. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.”