Over the past 20 years, Congress expanded subsidies for federal crop insurance in an effort to negate the need for unpredictable ad hoc disaster spending, flowing to certain agricultural producers after floods, droughts, and other disasters. Fast forward to 2018, however, and ad hoc aid flowing to certain agricultural producers was allocated by Congress in response to active hurricane and wildfire seasons in 2017. Since then, through a handful of acts of Congress, ad hoc disaster aid came back from the dead. The most recent funding flowed through the FY23 omnibus, enacted in Dec. 2022, bringing total “emergency” disaster-related spending for agriculture to $20 billion from 2017-2022.

Ag disaster spending – and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) implementation of it, first through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program (WHIP) and now the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) – has grown into another costly, redundant agricultural income entitlement program. WHIP has also suffered a high improper payment rate (nearly 50% in FY20), according to USDA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

A fact sheet on Agriculture Disaster Spending and Emergency Relief Program is available below and can be downloaded here.