Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) Stage 1

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Farm Service Agency</SUBAGY> <CFR>7 CFR Part 760</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID FSA-2025-0007]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0560-AI71</RIN> <SUBJECT>Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) Stage 1</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is issuing this final rule announcing SDRP, which provides assistance to eligible producers for losses to crops, trees, bushes, and vines due to wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freeze (including a polar vortex), smoke exposure, excessive moisture, qualifying drought, and related conditions occurring in calendar years 2023 and 2024. SDRP assistance will be provided in two stages, referred to as Stage 1 and Stage 2. This document provides the eligibility requirements, application process, and payment calculations for SDRP Stage 1 only, which will provide payments for eligible crop, tree, and vine losses calculated using data already on file with USDA from previously issued Federal crop insurance indemnities and Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) payments. FSA anticipates announcing SDRP Stage 2 in a later rule. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on July 10, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kathy Sayers; telephone: (202) 720-6870; email: <E T="03">Kathy.Sayers@usda.gov.</E> Individuals with disabilities who require alternative means for communication should contact the USDA Target Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and text telephone (TTY mode)) or dial 711 for Telecommunications Relay Service (both voice and text telephone users can initiate this call from any telephone). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Title I of the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025 (Division B of the American Relief Act, 2025; Pub. L. 118-158; referred to as “the Act” in this document) provides “$30,780,000,000, to remain available until expended, for necessary expenses related to losses of revenue, quality or production of crops (including milk, on-farm stored commodities, crops prevented from planting, and harvested adulterated wine grapes), trees, bushes, and vines, as a consequence of droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, tornadoes, winter storms, freeze, including a polar vortex, smoke exposure, and excessive moisture occurring in calendar years 2023 and 2024 under such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture . . .”. As provided in the Act, losses due to drought are only eligible if any area within the county in which the loss occurs was rated by the U.S. Drought Monitor  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> as having D2 (Severe Drought) for eight consecutive weeks or a D3 (Extreme Drought) or higher level of drought intensity during the applicable calendar years. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  The U.S. Drought Monitor classifies drought severity on a weekly basis according to a range of D0 (abnormally dry) to D4 (exceptional drought) and is available at <E T="03">http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu.</E> </FTNT> FSA is using the funding provided in the Act to assist producers through several programs. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> SDRP will use approximately $16.09 billion of the authorized $30.78 billion in funding to assist producers who suffered losses of crops, trees, bushes, or vines due to qualifying disaster events. FSA will administer SDRP in two stages. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  On March 29, 2025, FSA announced the Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) 2023 and 2024, which provides assistance to livestock producers for losses due to qualifying drought and wildfire (90 FR22614-22623). FSA will announce programs for livestock producers' losses due to flooding, milk losses, and losses of on-farm stored commodities in a later final rule. </FTNT> Stage 1 will use a streamlined process with pre-filled application forms for producers with indemnified crop, tree, and vine losses. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Data for these losses are already on file with FSA or the Risk Management Agency (RMA) as a result of the producer previously receiving a NAP payment or a crop insurance indemnity under certain crop insurance policies. This rule provides the eligibility requirements, application process, and payment calculations for SDRP Stage 1. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  NAP provides assistance for crop losses, but not for losses of trees, bushes, and vines that produce those crops. RMA provides insurance for crop losses and for losses of some trees and vines that produce crops. Previously the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) Phase 1 and ERP 2022 Track 1 included losses of trees for which insurance policies were available. Losses to vines were not included in the previous ERP 2022 Track 1 because coverage was not offered for vine losses in the applicable crop years; however, Federal crop insurance for grapevines was introduced in 2023 and will be included in SDRP Stage 1. Losses to bushes are not included in SDRP Stage 1 because RMA does not offer coverage for those losses. </FTNT> SDRP Stage 2 will provide payments to eligible producers for losses of crops, trees, bushes, and vines that were not indemnified. These losses, sometimes referred to as uncovered or shallow losses, include losses of crops, trees, bushes, and vines for which a producer did not have crop insurance or NAP coverage, as well as losses that were insured with crop insurance or covered by NAP but were not severe enough to trigger an indemnity. Like Stage 1, Stage 2 payments will be calculated based on individual crop, tree, bush, and vine losses, rather than a producer's cumulative revenue loss, which was used for the Emergency Relief Program (ERP) Phase 2 and ERP 2022 Track 2. Producers who apply for Stage 2 will provide the data required to calculate a payment through the application process. FSA anticipates announcing SDRP Stage 2 in a later rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Producer Eligibility</HD> To be eligible for SDRP Stage 1, a producer must be a: • Citizen of the United States; • Resident alien, which for purposes of SDRP means “lawful alien” as defined in 7 CFR part 1400; • Partnership organized under State law consisting solely of citizens of the United States or resident aliens; • Corporation, limited liability company, or other organizational structure organized under State law consisting solely of citizens of the United States or resident aliens; or • Indian Tribe or Tribal organization, as defined in section 4(b) of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 5304). This requirement aligns with the eligibility criteria for ERP Phase 1 and Phase 2. To be considered a producer, as defined in this final rule at 7 CFR 760.2202, an applicant must share in the risk of producing the eligible crop and be entitled to a share in that crop available for marketing from the farm, or would have shared had the crop been produced. Members of legal entities who do not individually share in the risk of producing the crop and ownership of the crop are not considered producers and are not eligible to apply for SDRP; in those instances, the entity is considered the applicant. To be eligible for SDRP, a producer must also be in compliance with the provisions of 7 CFR part 12, “Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation,” and the provisions of 7 CFR 718.6, which address ineligibility for benefits for offenses involving controlled substances. FSA's creation and mailing of a pre-filled Stage 1 application does not indicate that a producer is eligible for SDRP. For example, some entities with members who are not U.S. citizens or resident aliens may have received crop insurance indemnities. The process of transferring data from RMA to FSA may result in creation of a pre-filled application for those entities; however, those entities are not eligible for a Stage 1 payment. Also, FSA's creation and mailing of a pre-filled application does not indicate that a crop and unit listed on the application suffered an eligible loss due to a qualifying disaster event. For example, a crop insurance indemnity may have been issued for a loss due to drought, but the county did not meet the criteria for qualifying drought as defined in 7 CFR 760.2202. The producer would not be eligible for payment for those losses under SDRP. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Eligible and Ineligible Losses</HD> SDRP Stage 1 provides a streamlined application process for eligible crop, tree, and vine losses during the 2023, 2024, and 2025 crop years  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> due to qualifying disaster events in the 2023 and 2024 calendar years for which a producer: <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  The 2025 crop year is included because a qualifying disaster event occurring in the 2024 calendar year may cause a loss of a crop during the 2025 crop year, based on how “crop year” is defined in the applicable crop insurance policy or NAP provisions. </FTNT> • Received an indemnity under a Federal Crop Insurance policy that provided coverage for a loss of crop production, revenue, or quality, or a loss of trees or vines, excluding policies for forage seeding, policies for crops with an intended use of grazing, <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> livestock policies, Controlled Environment policies, <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Margin Protection Plan policies, banana plants insured under the Hawaii Tropical Trees provisions, <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> supplemental policy endorsements based on county- or area-level losses when purchased with a base policy, <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Cottonseed Endorsements; and policies issued in Puerto Rico;   Producers who received Livestock Forage ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 105k characters. 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