By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

Disaster relief is available for U.S. farmers and ranchers who suffered losses in 2023 and 2024 due to natural disasters like wildfires and drought.

More than $16 billion has been allocated for the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP), Stages 1 and 2, to provide disaster relief payments to producers who suffered revenue, quality or production losses to crops, trees, bushes, or vines due to qualified losses.

SDRP Stage 2 enrollment opened in November, but USDA officials say farmers and ranchers may still apply for SDRP Stage 1.

“Signup for SDRP stage 1 started in July, and we are also adding a quality loss component,” Richard Fordyce, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) undersecretary for farm production and conservation, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “If you were a participant in stage 1, you can go back if you had a quality loss issue, for example. There could also be people that have not signed up at all for SDRP Stage 1. So, we’re going to have SDRP Stage 1 and Stage 2 signup deadlines on April 30.”

SDRP losses due to wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freezes, smoke exposure, excessive moisture, qualifying drought and related conditions that occurred in calendar years 2023 and/or 2024.

Stage 1 is for producers with indemnified losses. It leverages existing Federal Crop Insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program data to calculate payments.

“Stage 2 will cover crop, tree, bush, vine and quality losses that were not covered under the earlier announced stage one,” Stephen Vaden, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, said. “The purpose of Stage 2 is to cover so-called shallow losses, which include non-indemnified losses, uncovered losses and quality losses between the two stages of the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program.”

Fordyce, USDA undersecretary, said for the first time through USDA disaster assistance, the program will cover uninsured and shallow losses.

“If a producer suffered a loss that did not exceed their crop insurance deductible, they will not be indemnified for their loss and receive the same crop insurance premium and fee refund as producers did in SDRP one,” Fordyce said.

Signup is also underway for USDA’s Milk Loss and On-Farm Stored Commodity Loss programs.

The milk loss program provides relief to producers who were forced to dump milk or remove it from the commercial market due to adverse weather while the on-farm stored commodity loss program covers losses of eligible commodities in storage.

“An example of that would be, so you’re milking and there’s one of those qualified weather events that maybe made the road impassable. If the milk truck couldn’t pick up your milk or you lost electricity, that milk is no longer suitable to go into the market stream. You had to dump it. We’re going to pick up a part of that loss,” Fordyce said. “The on-farm stored commodities piece is if you’ve got a grain bin and it gets flooded, obviously, that would ruin at least a portion of that grain bin. We’re going to be able to pick up part of that loss, as well.”

The Milk Loss Program provides up to $1.65 million in payments to eligible dairy operations who were not compensated for their losses.

Up to $5 million is available through the On-Farm Stored Commodity Loss Program.

The deadline to enroll in those programs is Jan. 23, 2026.

Additional details on the Milk Loss Program are available at fsa.usda.gov/mlp.

Details on the commodity loss program are available at fsa.usda.gov/ofsclp.