Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced plans to implement the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) for crop losses affected by qualifying natural disasters in calendar year 2022. While signup has yet to begin, the notice is designed to allow producers the time necessary to gather documents prior to official ERP signup.

In a response to U.S. cotton industry feedback, USDA has committed to use the same streamlined approach used in the design of Phase 1 for ERP in 2020 and 2021 for producers who had coverage through the Risk Management Agency’s (RMA) federal crop insurance. Through a fast-tracked application process, USDA intends to be in a position for sending pre-filled applications directly to eligible producers in early summer. However, there is limited funding and estimated losses in 2022 are far greater than the available funding provided to USDA likely causing payment factors to be less than those granted in 2020 and 2021.

For producers who have not been able to avail themselves of risk management coverage or whose losses were not covered, USDA intends to offer a program track to access ERP. Assistance will be provided to producers who suffered a decrease in allowable gross revenue in 2022 related to losses of eligible crops from a qualifying disaster event similar to the ERP Phase 2 approach of previous years.

Nevertheless, instead of implementing these program tracks as two separate phases on different timelines, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) intends to make both tracks available at the same time, noting that the first track will follow a streamlined process with less paperwork burden, based on existing, available risk management data. The second ERP track would require that producers provide FSA with certain information related to revenue.