U.S. Ag Department Accepting Applications and Making Payments Through WHIP+ Program
Thursday, May 7th, 2020 -- 8:55 AM
(Wisconsin Ag Connection) -The U.S. Department of Agriculture has started accepting applications and making payments through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program to agricultural producers who suffered eligible losses because of excessive moisture or drought in 2018 and 2019.Signup for these damages are for producers who suffered losses in Wisconsin from excessive moisture, floods, tornadoes, snowstorms, wildfires or drought. To be eligible for WHIP+, producers must have suffered certain crop production losses or losses to trees, bushes or vines in counties with a primary Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or a primary Secretarial Disaster Designation for qualifying natural disaster events that occurred in calendar years 2018 or 2019. Producers located in a county without a primary Presidential or Secretarial Disaster Designation may be eligible if documentation is provided showing the loss was due to a qualifying natural disaster event. For losses due to drought, a producer is eligible if any area of the county in which the loss occurred was rated D3, or extreme drought, or higher on the U.S. Drought Monitor during calendar years 2018 or 2019.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, no counties in Wisconsin met this requirement in 2018 or 2019. In addition to the recently added eligible losses of drought and excess moisture, FSA will implement a WHIP+ provision for crop quality loss that resulted in price deductions or penalties when marketing crops damaged by eligible disaster events. To ensure an effective program for all impacted farmers, the Agency is currently gathering information on the extent of quality loss from producers and stakeholder organizations.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.