The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says it is lobbying Congress for disaster assistance for growers hit by hurricanes in the southeast U.S.
“Too many family farmers remain in limbo more than one month after Hurricanes Helene and Milton barreled through the southeast U.S.,” Billy Hackett, NSAC policy specialist, said in a news release. “NSAC is heartened by the White House’s request to Congress for supplemental disaster assistance, which includes an explicit appeal for relief that reaches farmers without crop insurance or permanent disaster coverage. That would extend eligibility to a majority of U.S. farms — including the small-to-midsized farmers growing fruits and vegetables who are historically excluded from the farm safety net but are highly representative of the hardest-hit regions.”
The comment comes after the recent Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing, “A Review of Disaster Funding Needs,” assessing a request by the White House for supplemental disaster assistance.
The group said its members in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida solicited widespread reports of total crop loss, infrastructure damage, and soil erosion and contamination from the storms. Growers still need relief to prevent more farms being lost to foreclosure, the group said.
Revenue-based assistance, first introduced in the Emergency Relief Program, remains the only streamlined tool to-date demonstrated to reach U.S. farmers’ diverse recovery needs, according to the group.
“NSAC encourages lawmakers to authorize relief that reaches all the farmers, ranchers and farmworkers still reeling most from the impacts of increasingly unpredictable natural disasters nationwide, inclusive of those without prior coverage,” Hackett said. “In addition, NSAC looks to the next farm bill as an opportunity to both strengthen the resilience of the food and farm system to reduce losses and expand access to permanent risk management programs to reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster assistance in the future.”
