Emergency Livestock Relief Payments

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced USDA’s Farm Service Agency has issued final Emergency Livestock Relief Program payments totaling more than $1.89 billion. Congress directed the emergency relief payments to livestock producers suffering losses due to drought, wildfires, or flooding in calendar years 2023 and 2024. Deputy Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation Brooke Appleton recently discusses the details.

Appleton… “ The American Relief Act, which was passed at the end of 2024, provided for $2 billion in emergency relief payments to livestock producers suffering losses for calendar years 2023 and 2024. So we stood up a couple of different programs to cover these different disasters within livestock sector. So livestock producers have previously received an initial payment for drought and wildfire assistance. That was factored by about 35%, so it covered about 35% of their losses. We do that really pretty regularly in our program, designed to ensure payments do not exceed the available funding. We have issued an automatic second payment to eligible producers, and that is due to what the demand on the program has been.”

Again that’s USDA Deputy Under Secretary Brooke Appleton discussing details associated with its Emergency Livestock Relief Program